Mary Potter 2: the Heir of Slytherin
by LeighaGreene
Summary: Fem!Slytherin!Harry (Mary); realistic!Professors; humanized!Dumbledore; Sequel to 'Mary Potter and the Call to Adventure'; Parallels 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'. Increasingly divergent from canon, though there are still mysterious Chamber Monsters, house elves, and much illegal potions-brewing ahead for the intrepid trio... See first chapter for preface. PM for pdf.
1. Preface

THIS CHAPTER IS AN AUTHOR'S NOTE CHAPTER

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First of all, I would like to thank Feenrai, who has kindly beta-read this story. Her feedback has been invaluable, and I can't thank her enough for putting up with my pages of geeky emails about characterization and themes and ridiculously overly-obsessive magical theory essays.

* * *

As with the first story in this series, I plan to avoid A/Ns within the chapters, so there will be this chapter discussing the story and how it differs from canon, and then one chapter at the end where I will address reviews for the class and add updates on progress/hiatus/etc.

'Mary Potter and the Heir of Slytherin' is a sequel to 'Mary Potter and the Call to Adventure' and parallels 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.'

THIS CHAPTER MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION CONSIDERED SPOILERS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE FIRST STORY IN THE SERIES.

 **If you would rather skip straight to the story, or to the disclaimers at the end of this chapter feel free to do so:** nothing in this chapter is essential to your understanding or enjoyment of the rest of it, especially if you've already read the first story in the series.

 ***RECAP***

In this AU, Harry was born a girl: Mary Elizabeth Potter. Her personality is slightly different from Canon Harry's, largely due to different treatment by the Dursleys as she was growing up.

When Mary received her Hogwarts letter, Vernon Dursley (who didn't hate Mary quite as much as he did Harry, for various reasons outlined in the Preface to 'Call to Adventure') insisted that he and Petunia take the opportunity to get rid of the little brat for good. They sent a letter to Dumbledore which was intercepted by Minerva, who took steps to remove Mary from the Dursleys' custody while Dumbledore was out of the country on business.

Dumbledore didn't fight it because he interprets the prophecy to mean that the Chosen One is yet to be found – It can't be Mary because she's a girl and the prophecy specifies 'he.' Dumbledore isn't evil or excessively manipulative toward Mary, at least at this point, just a bit pre-occupied with his other duties. (And concerned that she occasionally reminds him of Tom.)

Minerva becomes Mary's official guardian in Magical Britain and takes her to Hogwarts. They go to Diagon Alley with Hermione's family, the Finch-Fletchleys, and Dean Thomas for the Annual Muggleborn Shopping Trip. Hermione invites Mary to stay at her house for the last few weeks of summer, and Mary (reluctantly) agrees.

On the train, Mary and Hermione meet a number of interesting people, both first-years and older students, and learn about the unwritten law that is The Truce – the reason Magical British Society is still able to function (despite the fact that it's an open secret that the most powerful Death Eaters got off scot-free and are still highly influential) and children from both sides of the recent civil war (though with the size of Magical British society, most muggles would consider it more of a gang war) are able to attend school with only minor hallway scuffles.

Mary is sorted into Slytherin House, which is much more internally organized and structured than Gryffindor. They have a plan for everything, and their upperclassmen make sure the new students aren't embarrassing the house, which translates into giving them a lot of help compared to what we see Harry receiving from older students in Canon.

Hermione is sorted into Ravenclaw. Hermione and Lilian Moon become Mary's closest friends.

Mary initially is faced with a good deal of prejudice from within Slytherin and is shunned for being _the_ Mary Potter. After an incident with Draco Malfoy and a flying lesson, this escalates into a series of ever-more-dangerous pranks. She ends the hazing period by (dramatically) revealing herself as a parselmouth within Slytherin. This of course spreads quickly throughout the entire school, with the result that everyone from all the houses now firmly believes that Mary belongs in Slytherin and treat her accordingly.

There are several life-threatening moments (intentional or not) over the course of the school year: The troll let loose on the dungeons; her broomstick cursed during a flying lesson; the run-in with Quirrellmort in the forest; Quirrell cursing her during his exam; wandering into the middle of Snape and Quirrellmort's duel; and of course there was the Norbert incident and the Snake Prank that almost sent her head-first down a staircase, though neither of the last two were actually intended to kill her.

Mary reminds Snape of himself more than Lily or James, and he distances himself from her for most of the year while he tries to come to terms with the fact of her existence. She sees him a bit less guarded after the duel with Quirrellmort. She reminds Dumbledore of a certain other orphan child from fifty years before, but he hasn't decided what to do about that yet. She reminds Remus of Sirius, and Minerva of Remus.

Politics is more complicated than just Dark-Neutral-Light, where the Dark houses support independence and a small government and the Light houses support cooperation and increased governmental powers and authority. A secondary axis that is important in this story is Traditionalist-neutral-Progressive, where traditionalists want to preserve their cultural values and progressives want to accept muggleborns' more modern values. A lot of the Neutral Houses like Bones and Urquhart are traditionalists, as are most of the Dark houses. Theo's mum is Dark and neutral on cultural issues. The Moons are a Neutral House with a neutral stance on the cultural issues as well. McGonagall is a Light Traditional family. The Weasleys and Dumbledore are Light Progressive. Hermione is actually neutral as far as the cultural stuff goes (because she thinks it's fascinating and wants to know all about it before she passes judgement), though most muggleborns are progressive.

Most Slytherin students come from 'traditionalist' families. Slytherin house, therefore (unofficially) still celebrates the Old Holidays (Samhain, Midwinter, Imbolc, Spring Solstice, Beltane/Walpurgis, Midsummer, Lammas, and Autumn Solstice). Mary participates in the Samhain and Midwinter rituals. Most Slytherins are from Dark families, so they don't bother with a house-wide Imbolc or Spring Solstice ritual. Walpurgis is for adults only, so you have to be at least 15 to join in. Mary completely forgets about Midsummer with the excitement of meeting Quirrellmort in the Forest (and then exams and yet another attempt on her life,) and she was being shunned during most of September, so she wasn't invited to join in with the Autumn Solstice.

Sometime in October, Snape learned that Voldemort was born Tom Riddle, and broke in to Azkaban to taunt Bellatrix with that knowledge.

 ***END RECAP***

This story will not follow canon quite as closely as the first story did (which I expect most readers will be pleased to hear), though most major events will still take place at about the same time: Mary's activities have done nothing to affect Lucius Malfoy's feud with Arthur Weasley, so the Diary is still put into play, and there is still a confrontation between "Tom the Diary Ghost" and Mary, though she is not the one who instigates it. There are still illegal potions-brewing activities (much more illegal activity, actually, than in canon, as the Twins get involved), and someone is turned into a cat. Mostly. Dobby is still hanging around, but Mary doesn't free him (on the advice of Cammy, who assures her that House Elves have their own ways to deal with people like Lucius Malfoy).

I was pleasantly surprised how many people seemed interested in the inclusion of more ritual magic and the expanded traditional wizarding holidays. I was originally intending to let them fade into the background, much like class activities, explained in detail the first time they happen, and after that only mentioned in passing unless an important plot event occurs during one of the ceremonies, or someone is clarifying an important theoretical point for Mary. Regarding ritual magic, that all the holiday observance rituals or celebrations are intended to simply honor the turning of the year or the power associated with the holiday, and in some cases to give a person more insight into themselves and their relationships with others. They all involve dipping into magic greater than oneself, and are largely benign. There is a different class of rituals (Black and White Arts) that are intended to affect an outcome through sacrifice to one of the Dark or Light Powers. This is the sort of ritual magic Lily Potter was notorious for using in the war (and what Voldemort uses to get a body back), and it is illegal because the Ministry doesn't want that kind of power thrown around on a regular basis. There are a lot of rituals in this book (they all seemed important at the time – what can I say?) so if that was your favorite part, awesome! If not, well, you can probably skim at least a quarter of this story. Sorry.

 **As implied by the fact that this is posted on a fan fiction website, I do not own most of the characters in this story, or the general plot, or most of the settings. I don't claim to. Even things that are not taken from canon may bear a striking resemblance to other fan works, due to the fact that I've read far too many such things. No plagiarism is intended. If you see something that looks familiar from fan fiction, PM me and I will add a reference.**

 **This story is written for fun, not profit, and I have and will receive no money in relation to it. Furthermore, as this is a single-point-of-divergence universe (or it's supposed to be), there will be points where dialogue which is not affected by changes to canon thus far is lifted directly from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In order to preserve the pacing of the story, these passages have** ** _not_** **been marked. I do not claim ownership of those lines. If you recognize them, you doubtless know who does.**


	2. Not the Worst Summer

**Chapter 1: Not the _Worst_ Summer**

[In which Mary has a bit of a breakdown over summer lessons, but gets back on the horse, as it were.]

July 1992 Urquhart Mansion

Looking back on the summer she turned twelve, Mary had to admit, it was anything but boring.

That said, it wasn't quite the break she'd been expecting.

In retrospect, it had been rather foolish to expect that with a professor as her guardian, she would have time off from learning things over the summer.

The first big surprise of Mary's summer was that Professor McGonagall was apparently a widow. The "safehouse" she had arranged for Mary to stay at was none other than the Urquhart mansion, with her former husband's family. The household consisted of Madam Urquhart, who was very old (possibly as old as the Headmaster) and very scary; Lord and Lady Urquhart, who were about the same age as the Professor, and rather stern (thankfully Mary didn't see much of any of the eldest three Urquharts); Lord and Lady Urquhart's son, Mr. Phillip Urquhart, and his wife, Mrs. Lilith Urquhart; Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart's three children, Mr. Stephan and Mr. Conrad, who were both married and in their twenties, and Miss Catherine, who was the youngest adult, and not married; Mr. Stephan's wife, Ms. Primrose, and Mr. Conrad's wife, Ms. Nanette, and their five young children. Laina, the oldest child, was almost seven, and Bryce, the littlest one, was only one year and a bit. It took Mary almost a week to work out which children belonged to which parents, because Miss Catherine seemed to do most of the actual childcare work, and spent the most time with them. She said it was her job, as the youngest woman in the house. Her grandparents were in no rush to marry her off, and she was in no rush to leave.

The second, less pleasant, surprise, was that apparently Mary behaved like an 'ill-raised rube,' according to Madam Urquhart. The only good thing the dowager Lady of the House had to say about Mary was 'at least she knows how to keep her mouth shut and her eyes down!' She was so old she didn't even pretend to be polite anymore. Mary didn't like her at all. She reminded her of Aunt Petunia, but worse, because she didn't even seem to be trying to be mean. Mary had been doing her best to behave politely, especially around the oldest Urquharts, but clearly her best was not very good at all.

According to Miss Catherine, the sum total of what she had managed to learn from the etiquette books in the library was about the equivalent of learning to say good morning and thank-you in French – not much at all, and the locals would realize that you were foreign as soon as you opened your mouth. It was also Miss Catherine who explained that Madam Urquhart was really upset with the Headmaster for allowing a pureblood girl like Mary to be raised by muggles (and that Mary had impressed the old hag in showing the initiative to at least _try_ to learn what was proper), and it was Miss Catherine that Mary turned to on her third day at the Urquhart Mansion, when she decided that she needed to learn how to fit in among the purebloods, if only to survive the summer, and sooner rather than later.

She didn't regret that decision, precisely. She knew it would be helpful to know all of the things Miss Catherine and her mother were teaching her. But she quickly found that she hadn't realized exactly what she was getting in to when she asked Miss Catherine for her help. On approaching Miss Catherine, she was immediately informed by her relieved hostess that she was technically being fostered by the Urquharts. This meant her education as a proper heiress to her house was their responsibility. If she hadn't had the good sense, Miss Catherine said, to seek her out, Mrs. Urquhart would have had to bring up the subject to her later that evening. Mary had gained a lot of points with the elder Urquharts by requesting to learn. Her only thought on the subject was that she had very narrowly dodged that particular social bullet, since she had nearly not asked at all. She hated asking for help, even when it was clear she needed it.

Laina, William, Thomas, and Angelica were all old enough that they were learning to read and write, as well as basic numbers and magical history. They had lessons every day from eight to ten, and again after lunch from one to three. Laina and William had magic theory lessons and learned basic wand movements from ten to noon (though they weren't allowed to cast spells). Mary was enlisted to help with all of these (except history, about which she knew less than Laina), and kept an eye on the younger kids while Miss Catherine worked with the older ones. Between teaching the younger children, Miss Catherine lectured Mary incessantly on the history of the Old Families (including the Potters, the Urquharts, and the McGonagalls), the expectations and role of a girl in a traditional pureblood family, and recent political and economic developments in Magical Britain. Everything she did, from the way she sat to the way she walked across the room or ordered Tiffy, the Nursery elf, to change Bryce's diaper, was critiqued and corrected.

She was given copies of family trees, and lists of the Noble Houses and all the pureblood families in Magical Britain to memorize in order of relative status. Potter, she was informed, had been taken off the latter list because Mary's mother was muggleborn, and could not be reinstated until the heir to the house was "three generations pure," or in other words, didn't have any muggle great-grandparents (and there were no squibs produced in the intervening generations). She learned when she should sit quietly and when to speak, what to say and how to say it, when she was expected to meet someone's eyes, and when she should be demure.

She learned the different terms of address and degrees of deference expected when interacting with people nearer or further from the head of their house than she was to hers, and for members of houses with different statuses relative to her own, which was still "Noble" and quite well off (due to her parents' money and her own fame), despite no longer being "pureblood." She learned that she was technically the head of her house, but as she was underage, she was still considered "the Heir of House Potter" and her guardian was her "regent." She learned that she had a seat on the Wizengamot, which was currently controlled by the Professor, which meant Professor McGonagall's brother, Angus, was actually casting her vote. One day in the second week of summer, the Professor came to visit, and Mary finally learned the full extent of her financial holdings and investments, which was more money than she had ever conceived of, but much less, the Professor informed her, than many of the Noble families.

Most mornings, Mary managed to get up early enough to answer letters from her friends before Miss Catherine came to wake her. On the days when she just wanted to have a lie-in, and not worry about learning all of these silly rules and social niceties or deal with the younger children, she stayed in bed until Miss Catherine came to remind her that knowing pureblood customs would help ameliorate the fact that her mother was a muggleborn in the eyes of those who cared about such things, which would be useful when she joined the political world in five short years. At that point, Mary always hauled herself out of bed and down to the classroom without voicing her complaints. When she wasn't lecturing on history or politics, Miss Catherine quizzed Mary incessantly on these topics, and set her to re-copying the family trees and the lists of pureblood and Noble houses when she answered too many questions incorrectly. Mary didn't really want to think about what the penalty would be if she refused to participate in her lessons, and it _was_ useful information, even if learning it was tedious.

Worse than the lists were the afternoon teas. The children took a nap in the afternoons, or were allowed to play quietly amongst themselves after their lessons, while Miss Catherine took tea with her mother and sisters-in-law, or occasionally an old school friend. Once, Professor McGonagall even attended. Mary had tasked herself with following Miss Catherine around like a shadow at these events, and learning her every move, so she found herself awkwardly mimicking the older girl and trying not to break one of the hundreds of little rules that separated "proper young witches" from everybody else. Tea was an exercise in making polite conversation, and it was worse than any other point in the day because the older women were much less forgiving about their corrections than Miss Catherine, and Miss Catherine expected more of her when she was in their presence. Poor performance reflected badly on her tutor, much like looking like an idiot in Slytherin reflected badly on the whole house.

After tea, if Mary had done well, Miss Catherine showed her new spells and helped her with her summer homework until dinner. If not, she was set to write for ages about what she had done wrong, and what she ought to have done instead, while Miss Catherine read novels or worked on her Italian. She hoped to study history in Italy when she finally mastered the language, but she said it was slow going with no one to practice with her. After dinner, Miss Catherine began teaching Mary the basics of proper romance languages, rather than just the "Latin" Hogwarts students learned for spellcasting, often while making her practice walking ("gliding") back and forth across the study, or sitting and rising smoothly from various chairs and sofas, or curtsying to varying degrees, or extending her hand gracefully in greeting, all the while correcting her posture and movement. She made Mary promise to practice French with Hermione and Italian with Blaise when she went back to school.

All of the lessons were strictly verbal, and Mary was not able to take notes because her hands were often occupied while Miss Catherine lectured. Reports and punishment-essays, however, more than made up for the lack of lecture notes. On Saturdays, Mary was set to write on the history and expectations she had learned, and Miss Catherine corrected her essays on Sunday while Mary translated simple Latin, French, and Italian sentences. Miss Catherine said this was how she had been taught, too, and it was the reason all the purebloods (and the half-bloods from good families) at school had such nice handwriting. Mary thought Miss Catherine would be a fearsome matriarch someday. She could easily imagine the young woman training her own daughters like she was Mary, and in fact Miss Catherine had said that Mary was a good practice-case for her, before she and Mrs. Urquhart started teaching Laina how to be a proper young lady.

Little Laina would be getting the same treatment next year (like all girls of her station), when she turned seven, and soon after that, when she could be trusted not to embarrass the family in public, she would be introduced to her peers from the other Noble Houses for tea parties, much like the ones Miss Catherine still attended once a month with her friends from Hogwarts. Laina would also be learning to play the piano, dance, draw, and speak French, Latin, and German. The pureblood sense of the word 'accomplished,' Mary gathered, was like something out of a Victorian novel. Mary would, she thought, be much more interested in learning to play the piano or draw than in learning to curtsey to someone like Draco Malfoy or properly condescend to address Tracey Davis, but Miss Catherine said that it was more important for her to know the basics of polite interactions and expectations outside the home before she returned to school. Mary had capitulated with little complaint.

It did not take long for Mary to realize that it was really very difficult to be a society girl. Girls like Miss Catherine and Daphne Greengrass (who, in retrospect, moved exactly like Miss Catherine was trying to teach Mary) just made it _look_ easy.

The first four weeks of vacation passed more quickly than Mary had ever imagined was possible. The Sunday before her birthday, as she had negotiated with the Professor, she packed all her things and readied herself to stay with the Grangers for a week. She would return to the Urquharts the following Sunday, and then Lilian would come and visit her at the Urquhart mansion in the last week before school started. She made sure to bring all the essays she had written for Miss Catherine so that she could show Hermione what she had been up to all summer. Between the reports and punishment ("refresher") scrolls, lists and family trees, notes on French, Italian and Latin, and simple translation exercises, she had written nearly eighty feet, _and_ she had finished her summer homework and kept up with letters to Hermione and Lilian. There were days when she felt like her right hand was going to just fall off, she wrote so much, but she had to admit, her penmanship _was_ improving.

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Professor McGonagall arrived, as she had on every other occasion she visited the Urquhart Manor, in the Apparition Room, with a small pop.

"I wish I was that good at apparating." Miss Catherine had come up behind Mary, and was watching enviously as the older witch steadied her hat and looked around to catch her bearings.

"What do you mean?" So far as Mary knew, all apparition was the same, so long as you didn't leave a bit of yourself behind (that was called splinching, and sounded awful).

"Haven't you ever noticed how quiet Aunt Minnie is when she pops in?" The older girl asked. Mary couldn't get over how odd it sounded, hearing the Professor called 'Aunt Minnie.' "That's the mark of good apparitionist. Novices make a loud noise like a gunshot when the air around them is displaced. Experts can control the process enough that they're nearly silent coming in or out of the space between."

"Quite right. You'll get there with practice," the expert in question confirmed. "Hello, Catherine, Mary. I take it the household has been well since my last visit?"

"Yes, Aunt Minnie," Catherine answered, moving forward to give the Professor the kiss of greeting, which was for family and close friends. Mary quietly curtsied as one was meant to for a familiar, respected elder from a family older than one's own. "And yourself?"

"Quite well, dear. Mary, you oughtn't hold that pose for longer than a quarter-second. Any longer and it looks a bit… well, mocking, really," she added in an off-hand, rather dismissive tone. She had been supportive when she learned that Mary was attempting to master the customs she ought to have learned growing up, but her supportiveness meant that she was treating Mary like any other pureblood heiress in training. The relatively-relaxed Professor McGonagall with whom Mary had spent Christmas Tea had been replaced by this strict, proper old woman, who was only slightly more kindly and less brusque outside of the transfiguration classroom than Mary had come to expect inside its boundaries. She was not a fan.

"Yes, Professor," Mary said, straightening her knees. She kept her features carefully neutral, though inside she was quite irritated. She couldn't wait to get to the Grangers'. Four weeks of constant corrections (and interminable essays) were starting to wear on her. She was clearly out of practice at letting criticism roll off her. She had been quite good at it by the time she left the Dursleys. It occurred to her that if she showed up at Four Privet Drive today, Aunt Petunia might even be pleased to see her, if only to mock her and not simply be shrugged off.

The Professor and Miss Catherine exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, before the Professor said, "Well then, give my regards to the family, Catherine. I'll stay for tea next Sunday on the way back through."

"Of course, Aunt Minnie." And with that, Miss Catherine and the Professor exchanged the kiss of farewell. Professor McGonagall shrank and pocketed Mary's luggage – a borrowed trunk, much smaller than her Hogwarts trunk – and offered her arm for side-along apparition.

Mary was pulled into the familiar, crushing blackness, and then, just as they began to emerge from it, there was a sensation very much like running headlong into a brick wall. The blackness of the space between, through which witches apparated, was replaced by the altogether more comfortable blackness of unconsciousness.

Sunday, 26 July 1992 Granger House

Mary woke suddenly, to find a very concerned Professor McGonagall hovering over her, wand out.

"What happened?" she asked, right hand scrabbling at her pocket for her own wand, before realizing that she was lying on a familiar sofa. Moment of panic over, she looked around for her glasses instead. They were on the coffee table. All three Grangers, she saw on retrieving them, were lurking near the doorway.

Hermione, ever eager to answer any question, spoke up before anyone else. "You, ah… hit the anti-apparition wards, and bounced off, basically."

The Professor looked rather embarrassed.

"What do you mean we bounced off?" A killer headache was beginning to settle at the base of Mary's skull, and she was not in the mood for half-explanations.

"Well, I'm not really sure how the wards actually work, but it's my understanding that we had the option of doing something really nasty to you, but mum had them set so that anyone who tried to apparate into the house would be redirected into the garden shed, which is basically locked up tighter than a prison cell. There was an alarm going off, and mum and dad went to see who tried to break in, and found the two of you lying on the lawnmower."

"For future reference, Professor McGonagall, when I say my home is defensible, and I feel secure in allowing my daughter's friends to come visit, it is safe to assume I will not allow witches and wizards to come and go from the house as they please," Mrs. Dr. Granger said, giving the Professor a very hard stare. It actually reminded Mary a bit of the look the Professor had given the class in their first-ever transfiguration lesson. _Ah_ , she thought, _I haven't missed much, then._

The Professor, who had to be at least old enough to be Emma Granger's mother, now looked a bit ashamed of herself, as well as embarrassed. "My apologies, Emma, Dan. I'm afraid it never occurred to me that you would have taken precautions against magical transportation or erected magical defenses."

Emma sniffed at the older woman. "You expected that we would invite an internationally famous child who is, from what little our daughter has told us, still targeted for death by a significant minority of your population, into our home without taking any steps at all to minimize the security risks posed by magic? What on earth do you take us for?"

"Muggles, dear," her husband answered, barely subduing a grin.

"Well, muggles or not, we do have a _bit_ of common sense."

"Wizards haven't," Mary and Hermione chorused. The Professor looked a bit startled at their opinion of her (their) people. It wasn't a new development, though: _Wizards haven't any common sense_ had become Hermione's most frequent complaint about the magical world over the course of the previous term.

A frosty silence began to develop between the Drs. Granger and the Professor, the former obviously irritated that their main contact from the magical world thought so little of them that they were not expected to have found a way to protect their home, and the latter clearly unwilling to apologize a second time, since her first attempt hadn't been accepted.

Mary cleared her throat, breaking the tension. "Could I have an aspirin?"

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Several hours later, after the Grangers thoroughly explained their ward-scheme to the Professor (who had apparently expected the relative anonymity of the muggle world and the relatively short duration of the visit, along with an emergency port-key to the Urquharts', to make up for the presumed lack of magical protections) and the latter had disapparated from the back garden, life in the Granger household resumed its usual pace: Dan and Mary made lasagna for dinner, while Hermione and Emma asked incessant questions about what she had been up to for the past month. Mary decided, as she explained Miss Catherine's teaching methods, that she certainly felt older than she did at this time last year, but other than that, nothing had really changed at all. She fit right back into the place she had left at the end of last summer. She wondered idly if this was what it felt like to come home.

Monday, 27 July 1992 Kent

It was not until Hermione came bouncing into the guest bedroom at seven in the morning that Mary fully realized that Hermione taking muggle summer classes (in order to maintain a well-rounded education, as she had written in her frequent letters), meant Mary would be expected to show up to these classes as well. The Grangers, Hermione explained over breakfast, were worried that Mary would be bored sitting around the house all day without Hermione, so they had informed Hermione's teacher that her cousin, Mary Beth Evans, would be visiting for the week, and obtained permission for her to sit in. Mary couldn't decide if this was incredibly thoughtful of them, or incredibly irritating.

After the first day, she decided it might have been both.

The teacher's name was Mrs. Klein, and the class was mostly full of delinquents, who were there as a punishment, and special needs students, who genuinely needed the extra help with their studies. Hermione was, far and away, the best student out of all of them, and spent most of her day working quietly in a corner and ignoring the chaos all around her. Mary, on the other hand (and much to her embarrassment), felt that she fit in rather too well with the special needs group – she hadn't ever been a good student (she hadn't really been allowed, what with being punished for out-performing Dudley), and while her reading and writing abilities were up to par from a year of essays at Hogwarts, she wasn't familiar at all with any of the literature covered in year seven (or a good part of year six), or "earth sciences," and had forgotten most of the maths she had learned in primary school.

This became apparent in the early afternoon, when the class was talking about plate tectonics. Mary made it through the morning quite well, reading part of Romeo and Juliet aloud with a boy named Freddy, and writing a paragraph about where the lovers' plan went wrong (with a biro, which made it the easiest writing assignment she'd had all summer). She had no idea where all the counties in England were located for geography (she'd never been anywhere but Surrey, London, Kent, and Hogwarts), but she was only called on to label the UK countries, and she got that right. They'd covered something called mean, median, and mode in maths, which was new to everyone, so she didn't stand out there, but after lunch, when Miss Klein cheerfully asked Mary to explain how continents worked, she was completely at a loss.

After a few minutes of red-faced stammering, Hermione saved her. "I think Lizzie's school started with biology, Mrs. Klein. Didn't you tell me you had to dissect worms and things like that, Liz?"

"Erm, yes?" They had dissected worms, if you could consider dicing them for potions to be dissecting them.

Mrs. Klein's jolliness was unblemished. "Ah, well, then, I imagine you'll be a bit lost for this bit, but I'll give you a book if you'd like to try to catch up to what we've been working on."

Mary simply nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Klein."

After half an hour more, they moved on to French. Mary didn't have the vocabulary to translate anything, though Mrs. Klein said her pronunciation was quite good when she was just reading the sentences aloud. The last hour of the day was spent on Civics, which was nowhere near as boring as Binns' lectures, but had about as much to do with anything Mary already knew, which was to say, nothing, and seemed like a bunch of Hufflepuff nonsense, anyway.

Hermione and Mary walked home in silence. Hermione tried to get Mary to talk for a bit, but she wasn't in the mood at all, and her answers were short and irritable.

Mary ran to the guest room as soon as they got back to the house, and locked herself in, trying not to brood on how little she knew, and the fact that she was never, ever going to be able to catch up. She failed miserably. Hermione knocked on the door and asked if she was okay, and she said she just wanted to be alone for a while. Even _Hermione_ , who was actually a good student, and cared about this sort of thing, would be lucky to catch up, since everyone else had nine months to learn everything that she was trying to master in two. Mary knew that, and she knew there were more important, immediate things she needed to learn, like how to not make a fool of herself and her name in public, but she hated feeling like a failure. Aunt Petunia had worked hard, trying to accomplish this very state of affairs, but had never succeeded, because at least with the Dursleys, Mary had a reason to fail: she was never allowed to really try. Now, though, when she was able to try her best, she found that her best wasn't good enough.

She didn't know how long she moped before Mrs. Dr. Granger knocked on the door. "Beth? Are you awake? Hermione's worried about you, sweetheart."

"Go away," Mary said, mostly into her pillow.

"Beth, honey, if you don't answer, I'm going to have to go get the key…"

"I'm fine. I just don't want to talk," Mary said, to the door this time, and not the pillow.

There was a sound of footsteps moving away, and then nothing for what seemed like a very long time.

The quiet was broken by another knock. "Beth, dinner's ready. Dan made ratatouille. You really should come try it, he's quite good."

It smelled good, but Mary didn't want to see anyone. "I'm not hungry." She rolled over, hugging a pillow, and Mrs. Dr. Granger left again.

Sometime after that, Mary woke to find the sun was setting, and Mrs. Dr. Granger was sitting on the bed. There was a foil-wrapped plate sitting on the nightstand.

"I said I didn't want to talk," Mary said, rubbing her eyes. She hadn't cried. It had been years since she'd really cried, and not just because she'd been hit in the nose and teared up or something. But her eyes felt itchy like she had, anyway.

"Yes, well, it would look bad if Minerva came back and you'd locked yourself into a room to starve all week," Emma said in a dry tone that reminded Mary a bit of Professor Snape. She couldn't help but smile a little bit at the thought of introducing the two of them. They'd probably get on. "So why have you locked yourself in here to starve?"

"I wasn't going to starve," Mary rolled her eyes. "It's only one meal."

"Yes, well, I'm not in the habit of allowing my children to miss meals," the dentist said with a frown.

Mary snapped at the older woman. "I'm not your child."

Emma didn't miss a beat. "I meant Hermione and Dan," she lied. Mary smiled again. If anyone was likely to skip a meal in the Granger house, it was Emma, not Dan. He liked cooking too much to miss out on the food. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you skip your veggies either," Emma added, nodding at the plate.

Mary unwrapped it and began to work on the sauce-soaked vegetables and cold pasta. It was very good, even as left-overs. She was sorry she hadn't gone out to help and learned the recipe.

Emma sat and watched, waiting until Mary's mouth was full to say, "Is this about school?"

Mary startled, choking on a bit of pasta, and Emma pointed out the glass of water on the nightstand.

"So, that's a yes, I take it? Hermione said you'd been very quiet all day, after your science lesson…" Emma trailed off expectantly, and Mary glared at her, still coughing.

"I don't know anything!" (cough) "I felt so stupid!" (cough) "It doesn't –" Mary started coughing badly again, and had to stop talking for another sip of water. "It doesn't even matter, that science stuff, or literature, or geography. I'm never going to need to know any of it!" She crossed her arms defiantly.

"But it bothers you that you don't?"

Mary froze. Emma was giving her a _look_. If Mary hadn't known better, she would have thought that Hermione's mother was reading her mind, but she didn't think even wizards could do that. After a long moment, she nodded.

Emma gestured at the plate. "Eat your dinner. I promise I won't surprise you like that again."

"Like you could," Mary muttered.

Emma grinned. "Is that a challenge?"

"Nope." Mary shook her head, retrieving her fork. She had no doubt that Emma could find _some_ way to surprise her, and she'd probably die choking on a chunk of zucchini. What a stupid way to go. Mary Potter, survives Dark Lord, murderous possessed teacher, killed by a muggle wielding fearsome French cooking.

Emma sighed as Mary continued eating. "You're wrong, you know, about the mundane school stuff not being important. I've done a lot of reading about your magical subjects over the last year. There's a lot wizards could learn from muggles, much as they don't think so, and the very existence of magic has some exciting implications for muggle sciences, or at least that's what Dan says. He reads much more physics than I do. But even I know that Transfiguration could be improved by a better understanding of biology, botany, and physics, and I haven't done any of that since high school. Charms is almost all physics, and probably some neuroscience, from what I understand. Geomancy and Elemental magic use earth sciences and geography, even if they don't know it, and Alchemy has the same basis as chemistry, about four hundred years ago. Arithmancy uses a lot of maths: statistics for prognostication, and algebra, and even some calculus in the advanced spellcrafting. There's a magical geographic coordinate system that's used for travel, and is based on mundane geography, and the politics and history is inherently tied to mundane geography and history. Magic gives you more options, but it doesn't mean it's better than or can completely replace mundane knowledge, and there's a _lot_ to be said for the accomplishments of logic and the scientific method in general."

"Well, great. Now I feel even worse." Mary stabbed a chunk of eggplant, scraping her fork on the plate. She winced. Miss Catherine would have given her an essay for that alone. "I'm behind, and I can't even say it's in something that's not important."

Emma rolled her eyes. "You're a smart girl, Elizabeth. And in a lot of ways, you remind me more of myself than Hermione does." She smiled. Mary didn't really see it, but she nodded anyway. Maybe it was just that Hermione was more like Dan. They were both very Ravenclaw. But Emma wasn't dumb. "You remind me of myself as a girl, and so I'm going to tell you a lesson no one ever told me, but that it would have helped to know earlier in life: You need to set your priorities, and understand that it's not wrong, and you haven't failed just because you can't do everything at once."

"I have priorities," Mary objected.

"No, you don't." She held up a hand to stop the girl's protests, and waited until Mary continued to eat. "You know what's important to you and what's not at all, but you don't know what to do when more than one thing is important. Have you not spent all night hiding in here and freaking out because you don't have the time to catch up with your muggle peers? I've looked over those scrolls you brought to show Hermione. You've already done a phenomenal amount of work this summer. I'm guessing that's all the stuff you should have learned before you went to school, if you'd been raised by wizards?" Mary nodded. "It's not so different from the sort of thing I had to learn growing up," Emma informed her. "And I _know_ it's not the sort of thing anyone is expected to learn in a single summer."

That was actually… really nice to hear. All Miss Catherine and Mrs. Urquhart ever said was that she was doing something wrong. They never pointed out that she was making progress, just that she was nowhere near her peers, yet.

"Four years," Mary said quietly. "They start when they're seven, so they have four years until they go to school to learn everything that Miss Catherine's trying to catch me up on."

Emma nodded, as though that was only to be expected. Mary was suddenly very curious where and how this woman had grown up. "And of course they pick things up before then, just being around it all the time. You didn't write anything about it, but you move more gracefully now, and you kind of pose yourself when you sit." Mary's mouth almost fell open. She was astonished that it was a noticeable difference. Emma smirked at her. "Add ballet, tap, riding, drawing, singing, violin, piano, German and Greek to your lessons, strike the Italian, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I grew up with."

"Why?" Mary couldn't imagine anyone needing to know all that in the muggle world.

Emma shrugged. "The trials of my misspent youth. I could bore you all night with it, I'm sure, but for now I'll leave it at: I grew up in a family and a society that had certain standards of expected behavior for proper young women."

Mary thought that sounded awfully like something Mrs. Urquhart would say, and she _did_ know how to use a quill... "Are you a squib?"

"No," the older woman laughed, "Old Southern gentry, from the United States. Emma Mae Holmes, once upon a time."

Mary flushed. "You don't sound American."

"Ah've lived here for quite a while, now," Emma momentarily affected a slow, Southern drawl, before snapping back to her normal accent. "Plus Americans don't always sound like you'd expect from the telly."

Mary snickered and changed the subject. "I guess most Old Family girls do learn most of that. Dancing and drawing and such. German. But Miss Catherine said I didn't have time, so I needed to focus on the stuff you saw. We're only doing Italian because Miss Catherine's trying to learn it."

"Sounds about right. And your Miss Catherine has the right idea: you need to figure out how to best use your time. You can't get upset because you don't have time to keep up with Hogwarts and catch up with your society lessons, and catch up on everything you've missed in the muggle world at the same time. Maths and science will still be there when you've learned all you need to about your political position and responsibilities. They'll still be there even if you have to wait until you're out of Hogwarts to look them up."

Mary nodded. "I know. I just…"

"Hate feeling like you're behind?"

Mary nodded again, refusing to meet the older woman's eyes. She couldn't quite bring herself to say it, especially to an adult, but this method of "opening up" by just agreeing while Mrs. Dr. Granger read her mind – however she was doing that – was a lot easier.

"Well, I don't know that it will help, much, but try to keep in mind that you're now going to know a lot of things Hermione doesn't. You already do. She's catching up on the mundane schoolwork, but she hasn't the faintest idea how to behave at a proper dinner party, or what it means to be a good hostess, or who you would invite for high tea versus afternoon tea, or what to say when an old family friend sends veiled insults to you by letter, but is perfectly pleasant in person. She can't sing or play an instrument or draw any more than she can cook, and her Latin really isn't that good. Your penmanship is now _much_ better than hers, and I'm pretty sure she couldn't curtsey to save her life. If I were to introduce her to my grandmother, the old woman would probably disown me," she said, and then added with a grin, "Again."

"Why didn't you teach her all that growing up?" Mary asked, partly out of curiosity and partly because she was uncomfortable being compared to Hermione by her mother.

"Because I hope she never needs to know it, and she was never interested. I'll teach her to dance before her cotillion, but I didn't want her to have the childhood I did."

"Not good?"

"Oh, it was, in hindsight. But I wasn't very happy at the time, if that makes sense."

"Not really."

"Hmmm… put it like this: Do you think it would be fun, being raised by the Urquharts?"

Mary thought about it. It would probably be better than being raised by the Dursleys, even though Mrs. Urquhart was just as strict as Aunt Petunia, and Madam Urquhart was just as mean. But would it be fun? "No, probably not."

"But do you think your Catherine regrets her childhood?"

"No, she seems happy."

"Well, it's our experiences that make us who we are. I like the way I turned out, so I consider my childhood good in hindsight, and I don't regret it, even though I was miserable being forced through etiquette and elocution lessons – which is why I don't sound very Southern – and I was terrible at piano."

"Okay, I think I get it. I still wish I had grown up in Magical Britain, though. There's just so much I don't know!"

"Do you really?" Emma peered at Mary over her glasses. "The magical world is very small, you know, and you'll have an enormous advantage over your wizard-raised peers when you get out of Hogwarts, because as far as I can tell, no matter how things seem at school, the magical and mundane worlds are drawn into contact all the time, and the magical world is seriously lacking in people who know how to manage that contact. Their solution seems to be, more or less, erase everyone's memories, until the next time magic happens. You and Hermione, and all your other muggle-raised peers, unlike their wizarding counterparts, know about technology, and pop culture, and have a basic understanding of how the government works, and the economy, or at least the resources to help you figure it out. You know how to dress like normal muggles and blend in, without looking like you've just walked out of a movie from the early 1900s, or else a crazy person who's escaped from an asylum. If you ever need to import anything from the muggle world, for example, you could do it far more easily than, say, that Malfoy boy I've heard so much about. There's a lot to be said for being raised in the dominant culture of a country, even if you decide to leave it eventually. You have… options. Influence. Potential allies, from both sides of the Invisible Curtain. And that can be worth almost as much as, if not more than, the respect you'll get for your heritage and position, once you've caught up to society."

Mary raised a skeptical eyebrow. "So you think I'm better off with being raised in the muggle world, and then having to cram everything I should have known already, and just leaving the muggle maths and such for later?" She wondered what Emma would say if she knew Mary spent ten years living in a cupboard and working like a house elf.

Emma hesitated. "Not quite. I wouldn't say 'better off.' But… I think you can make it work for you, as long as you keep your priorities in order and don't spread yourself too thin. Make allies of people like Hermione, who have skills and knowledge you don't. Don't forget that you have your own strengths and expertise that they may be lacking. And if you need help with something, don't be afraid to ask. It… took me a long time to learn that. But you'll find that people like to help each other, sometimes for favors, but often just because they think you need it, and it doesn't hurt them, and makes them feel good."

Mary sighed, "Thanks, Emma." She appreciated the advice, but there was no way she was actually going to go around asking for help. She could take care of herself.

The woman winked at her. "So you're going to take my advice on priorities and allies, but you still don't think it's a good idea to ask for help and thereby admit you need it."

"Are you a mind reader or something?" Mary interrupted.

Emma laughed. "No, your face is actually very expressive once someone gets to know you, if they're paying attention." Mary immediately tried to make her face completely blank, and Emma laughed again. "You do have a better poker face than most kids your age, but I'm very, very good at this game. And like I said, you remind me of myself. That makes it easier. _Anyway_ , if you don't _need_ advice, but just _want_ it, you can still ask me. And I'll keep an eye on you and tell you if I think you need to know something. How's that?"

Mary nodded tentatively. "Okay. Yeah."

"Good. Now pass me your plate, and talk to Hermione tomorrow after school, yeah? She didn't beg and plead to have you over just to have you hide yourself away all week."

"Okay. Do I have to go to school?"

Emma shrugged. "I think she'd like it if you did. But no one's going to force you if you don't want to." She headed for the door, apparently done with what she'd wanted to say.

Mary thought about it for a few seconds, and said, just as Emma was opening the door, "I'll go."

The older woman looked over her shoulder and grinned. "I thought you would. Good night, Beth."

"Good night, Emma."

Tuesday, 28 July 1992 Kent

Mary did attend school the next day, reminding herself all the while that she didn't need to worry what the teacher thought of her, or even try if she didn't want to – she would only be there for the week, after all. She tried to fill Hermione in a bit on the way there, but it was harder to say it than she thought it should be, and their conversation was cut short by the beginning of lessons, so, as predicted, they really didn't have a chance to talk until after classes.

They took the long way back to the Grangers' house, kicking a rock in front of them down the sidewalk. They mostly talked about school, and Mary's summer, and all the catching up she still had to do. By the time they reached the house, Hermione more or less had figured out what Mary was trying to say without saying it.

"So you were just upset because you were… kind of overwhelmed?"

Mary shrugged. "Yeah. I guess that's a good way to put it."

"But you're better now?"

"I think so."

"Are you sure?"

"Your mum came in and talked to me for a while last night. Well, at me, more like. She made me eat so she could talk, I think."

"Ah, yes, very Slytherin, mum is."

Mary laughed. She hadn't given it much thought, but she supposed Emma probably would be a Slytherin, if she were a witch. "Yeah, well, she kind of just… told me a bunch of stuff I already knew,"

"But in a way that made you actually believe it?" Hermione finished. Mary nodded sheepishly. "She's good at that. So what do you want to do for your birthday?" the older girl changed the subject.

"I…" that was an excellent question, and no one had ever asked it of Mary before. "I don't know. I've never celebrated it before, except last year, and all I did then was explore Hogwarts' grounds with Hagrid and eat cake."

"Well, if you want a suggestion, I was thinking maybe we could go for dinner in Diagon? If it were my birthday, that's what I'd do."

And then Mary had a horrifying realization: she had no idea when either of her friends' birthdays were.

"Lizzie? Are you alright? You've gone pale."

"When's your birthday?" she squeaked out.

"Nineteenth September, which is why I can't drag my parents to the Alley – we'll be at school."

"I missed it! I'm so sorry! It didn't even occur to me until now to ask."

Mary, still on edge over school and priorities and constantly being told she wasn't good enough for Society, was momentarily _certain_ that she was a terrible friend, but Hermione brushed it off with a grin. "Well, from what I remember, you _were_ doing your best not to be killed by your housemates that week so… don't worry about it."

"No! I'm buying you a belated present, when we go to the alley."

Hermione gave Mary a rather bemused look. "It was nine and a half months ago. You really don't have to…"

"But you're my best friend. I don't want to be the kind of shite best friend who doesn't even know when your birthday is."

"Well, now you do know. But you don't need to get me anything. And definitely not for last year."

"Too bad. I'm going to, anyway."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Did you get Lili anything? Hers was over winter hols."

"No, I didn't." Mary bit her lip.

"It's been months, Lizzie, relax. Neither of us is offended. If we minded, we'd have mentioned it before now."

"But what if –"

"It's fine, I promise. I wasn't planning on getting you anything this year, either, it's just, you know, an excuse to have cake."

"You don't have to get me anything, though. I'm staying here. That's a great present."

"And because you're here, we'll get to have cake, with real sugar! It balances out."

"You… you're sure?"

"Elizabeth," Hermione said in her most serious voice, looking Mary directly in the eye, "I don't know if you know this about me, but I _love_ cake. And I live with dentists." And then she cracked up.

Mary smiled as well. It was nice to see Hermione being silly. It didn't happen at school all that often. "I'll get you real chocolate, to take to Hogwarts with you. How's that?"

"Well, I wouldn't say no to it. But you really don't need to get me anything for my birthday. It was ages ago, and I wasn't expecting anything. I didn't even tell anyone, because it's _not a big deal_."

"Fine." Mary didn't entirely believe her, but this argument was going nowhere.

"Fine."

"So what do you want to do tonight?"

"Let's just watch a movie or something. We never do that, and it's not like we could at school."

The Drs. Granger arrived home just in time to catch the last few minutes of Indiana Jones, and then it was time for dinner, and homework. Dan was reading, and Hermione had schoolwork, but Mary asked Emma to speak French with her, because it was one of the few things she could practice away from the Urquharts.

They had a very long and confusing conversation (with extensive commentary from Hermione and frequent pauses for Mary to look up words) about either flying or ballet and Persians or drills, or possibly mythology or Percy Weasley (but probably not Weasley), and then either common sense or a census. It didn't really matter which for the last one, Mary supposed, as the Wizarding world seemed to lack both, and that was the gist of what Emma was saying. Probably.

Friday, 31 July 1992 Granger House

Wednesday and Thursday were similar to Tuesday, and Friday differed only insofar as instead of Dan and Mary cooking dinner, they did end up going to the Alley. Mary decided to get a present for herself, dragging the Grangers into Bagnold's Brooms (where Dan talked to the very confused salesman about aerodynamics, and Mary placed an order for the top-of-the-line Nimbus 2001 Racing Broom – perfect for seekers, to be delivered to the Urquhart Mansion the following Monday), and they ate dinner at a little French restaurant. They stopped at Florean Fortescue's for ice cream at Emma's suggestion. Hermione was a bit put out that there was no cake, but found an ice cream flavor with chunks of cake in it, which she admitted was possibly even better.

When the Grangers (and Mary) returned to their house, however, Friday evening took an unexpected turn. Hermione went to her room to fetch a book, and let out an ear-shattering screech. Mary and the Drs. Granger came running, and burst through the door as a house elf, poorly clad in an old pillow-case with rips for arm-holes, bowed low and introduced itself to Hermione.

"Miss Mary Potter! I is Dobby! So long has Dobby wanted to meet Miss Mary Potter!" It had a very high-pitched voice and enormous green eyes. Its nose was very long and thin. Mary was certain she had never seen it before, which seemed a reasonable assumption, given that it seemed to have mistaken Hermione for Mary.

All of the humans spoke at once: "I'm not Mary," "How did you find me?" "What is it?" and "Where did it come from?" vied for attention until Emma clapped her hands loudly.

"I propose we move to the living room," she announced, and turned her back on the assembled crowd. Everyone else, including the strange elf, followed obediently and found their usual seats. The elf stood in the center of the room as they scrutinized it.

"What is this creature?" Emma asked the girls.

"Dobby is a house elf, Miss!" the elf squeaked.

"I wasn't talking to you," Emma said, raising an eyebrow at Hermione and Mary.

She was clearly awaiting confirmation of the elf's claim, but before Mary could explain what a house elf was, Dobby began twisting its ears (Mary couldn't say with the pillowcase whether it was male or female), shrieking, "Bad Dobby! Very bad Dobby!"

"Stop it!" Hermione shouted. The elf collapsed into a ball, hugging its knees tightly. Mary just stared. She had never seen any of the school elves act like that.

"It's a house elf, Emma. There are dozens of them at school. Maybe a hundred. They're like servants, in the wizarding world. Well, slaves, I guess. But most people treat them well, at least according to Cammy, and all the ones I've met have had only good things to say about their work." Dobby was trembling and rocking a bit. Mary felt she should probably revise that statement. "Erm. Perhaps not this one."

"Bad Dobby!" the elf began shrieking again, throwing its head against the floor.

"Dobby!" Emma snapped at the elf, "Stop that at once and explain yourself."

The elf froze, halfway through another convulsion. "Dobby had to punish himself, Miss. Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, Miss."

"Who are your family?" Dan asked.

The elf sat up again. "Dobby cannot say, sir. Dobby is bound to a wizard family, sir, to serve one house and one family forever, but Dobby is not supposed to be here, sir, and cannot betray his family by speaking their name, sir."

"So they don't know you're here, then?" Dan looked very uncomfortable with the constant 'sir's.

"Oh, no, sir. Dobby will be having to punish himself most severely for leaving without permission, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir –"

"But won't they… notice? If you shut your ears in the oven door?" Hermione sounded a bit faint.

"Dobby doubts it, Miss. Dobby is always havings to punish himself for something, Miss."

"But that's _awful_!"

"No!" Mary tried to stop Hermione, but she was too late. The elf was already twisting his ears again. "Dobby, stop! You are not to punish yourself in our presence." He stopped, looking torn between relief and terrible anxiety. "Hermione, Dan, Emma, don't say anything about his masters. If it's negative and he agrees with you, he'll have to punish himself later. Right?" she asked, looking back at the elf. He nodded, ears flopping. None of the Grangers looked happy about this.

"Fine, then," Dan said irritably. "Why are you here, Dobby?"

Dobby looked back and forth between the two girls, before apparently realizing that he'd had the wrong one before, and settling on Mary. "Dobby is come with a warning for Mary Potter!" he squeaked. "Mary Potter must not go back to Hogwarts!"

"Why not?" There was no way Mary would not go back, but it wouldn't hurt to see what the elf had to say. He had doubtless come for a reason.

"Mary Potter must stay where she is safe. She is too great, too good, to lose. If Mary Potter goes back to Hogwarts, she will be in mortal danger!"

Mary had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. "What kind of mortal danger?"

"There is a plot, Miss Mary, a plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," the elf whispered, trembling again. "Dobby has known it for months, Miss. Mary Potter must not put herself in peril. She is too important!"

"Erm… what? Why?" Dan snorted at the confused look on Mary's face. "No, seriously, it's not like I haven't been in mortal peril before. And I'm pretty sure I'm not actually that important. I didn't do anything to defeat the Dark Lord, either when I was a baby or last year. I just… have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And escaping."

"What's this about you defeating the Dark Lord last year?" Emma didn't miss a trick. Damn. Mary thought Hermione had told them, but apparently not, since she was suddenly looking very guilty.

"Ah, perhaps we can talk about that later, mum? After we get rid of the elf?"

"Fine," Emma glared at her daughter, and then at Mary, who was mouthing _sorry, Maia_ over her shoulder, "But I'll not forget about this! Elf! What does this plot entail, and who is plotting it?"

The elf looked as though he very much wanted to beat his head on the floor again. "Dobby mustn't say, Miss. Dobby must _not_."

Mary groaned. "It's got to be his family, or else they've specifically ordered him not to say. He can go against their implied wishes, which is how he got here, but not against specific orders, which is why he can't say who they are."

"Fine, we'll keep it in mind. Anything else cryptic to add?" Dan asked somewhat sarcastically.

"No, Dobby is havings nothing more to add, sir."

"I've still got a question! How did you find me?" Mary glared at the elf. "And how did you get in?"

"Elves goes where elves is needed," Dobby said, and on that ever-so-cryptic note, the elf vanished with a crack.

"Well, bullocks," said Dan. Mary thought that fairly well summed up her response to the elf as well.

And then Emma rounded on the girls: "Dark Lord, last year, explain!"

Fully informing the elder Grangers of the insanity that was their first year and the Quirrellmort Adventures took far, far longer than Mary had hoped, but it was nothing compared to the argument that followed on whether Hermione ought to be allowed to return to the (admittedly somewhat dangerous) school.

 _Bullocks_ didn't begin to capture the latter half of the evening.


	3. The Game is Afoot!

**Chapter 2: The Game is Afoot!**

[In which we see Diagon Alley from a different perspective, and Lucius Malfoy is a petty dick.]

Monday, 3 August 1992 Urquhart Mansion

Mary returned to the Urquhart Mansion, as scheduled, on the morning of the first Sunday in August. Professor McGonagall stayed for tea, and on Monday, Mary's lessons picked up exactly where they had left off, at least for the first few hours.

While Laina and William were practicing wand movements under Miss Catherine's supervision, and Mary was playing blocks with the younger Urquhart children, Mary asked Miss Catherine what the family had done while she was gone. She expected that the answer would be something like 'just the usual, and what is the degree of relationship between yourself and the head of House Parkinson,' but instead the older girl said that she had missed the annual Lammas celebration, which took place on the evening of her birthday, and ended on the morning of the first of August.

"Oh! I didn't even realize! May I ask how the holiday is celebrated?" Mary also realized, belatedly, that she had forgotten all about Midsummer in the rush of exams and all the excitement with Quirrellmort, and that she never did figure out why Slytherin didn't celebrate Imbolc or the spring equinox.

Miss Catherine smiled. "Yes, you may. I'm glad you're taking an interest in the traditional holidays."

"I was invited to the Samhain and Yule rituals at Hogwarts," Mary volunteered. "They were… pretty amazing."

"Who led the Yule ritual?" Miss Catherine asked.

"Miss… Carpenter," Mary had to think about it. "Aeronwyn Carpenter. She's a fifth-year Slytherin. Well, sixth, now."

"Oh, little Wynnie! I remember her. I was a prefect her first year, you know. Well, good for her. She would have done a Balanced ritual, right?"

Mary nodded. The Professor had said it was 'well-balanced' at their Christmas tea, at least.

"The thing you have to understand about the holiday rituals is that each family has their own way of doing things. The Samhain ritual at Hogwarts is always the same, and it's different than any particular family's celebration, but that's because it's more focused on the dead than the dark. You know about the Powers?" she asked, correcting William's 'swish' movement.

"Yes," Mary said firmly. She really just wanted to know what the Urquharts had done for Lammas, not get another confusing lesson on the Powers. "Theo Nott told me about them before Yule."

"Well, I'm sure he was very thorough. Cadmus Nott is a right bastard, but he's raised his son traditional, well enough." Mary raised an eyebrow. Miss Catherine didn't normally swear, especially about the Heads of other Noble Houses. She made a mental note to avoid Lord Nott. "Yule, and Mabon and Midsummer at Hogwarts are led by one Slytherin student, normally from a Balanced House, but sometimes Dark, if they don't have a good candidate from a Balanced House. That student adapts their family ritual, usually with the help of Professor Sinistra or Professor Flitwick, to be appropriate for a larger group. Good, Laina, but that's more of a thrust than a jab. Jabs are short."

"Like this, Aunt Cathy?" The girl poked her practice wand forward again.

"Try not to move your arm so much. It's in the fingers and the wrist. William, if you're tired of swishing, your flicks could use work."

William made a pouting face, but turned away from his sister to focus on his own wand-work. He was only five, and easily distracted. "Yes, Laina, like that. That was a good one. Twenty more of those, and then you may practice whatever you want, so long as it's an actual movement."

"Yes, Aunt Cathy."

Miss Catherine turned back to Mary, who was waiting patiently for the lecture to continue as she summoned back the small wooden blocks that Tommy and Angel were throwing across the room. "There aren't enough Light Traditionalists left, and certainly not in Slytherin, to have a House ritual for Imbolc or Ostara. Aunt Minnie and Professor Flitwick hold a light ritual for themselves and any students from Light or Balanced families who are interested. From what I remember, they trade off on leading them, though of course, only children actually participate in the ritual on Imbolc. And then for Walpurgis, the Wild Dark chooses a person to lead the celebration. House and family affiliation don't matter, and it's always different – personal and impulsive. No one is invited to that until they're fifteen, because things tend to get a bit… out of hand."

Mary smiled. The older Slytherins had given her the impression that there was a lot of snogging at Walpurgis, and possibly _more_ than snogging, if the smirks Adrian and Perry had been exchanging meant anything. They weren't old enough yet, either, but they claimed to be looking forward to it. Neither Mary nor Miss Catherine would say anything about that with the littles in the room.

"Because you are never at school for Lammas, most people only ever learn their own family's Lammas ritual, and that of the family they marry into."

Mary was sure her face fell visibly. "Does that mean you can't tell me, Miss Catherine?"

"No," Miss Catherine corrected her, "it just means that you should be mindful of the fact that House Urquhart is extending you an honor by telling you, and treat the information accordingly. Ouch! That's it, Tommy, no more blocks! And you're in time out for five minutes. Go to the corner, now."

"Bu' Aunt _Ca_ thy…" Tommy tried (and utterly failed) to look innocent.

"You threw a block at me, Thomas Elphinstone Urquhart. You know you're not to throw things at people. Don't make me body bind you. Time out! Now!"

The four-year old's shoulders slumped, and he shuffled off to sit quietly by himself. Miss Catherine set a timer, then spotted the look on Angel's face. "Angel, don't you dare think that just because your cousin is in time out you get to pick on him! There are other corners just waiting for you!" Angel and Tommy were only a few months apart in age, and spent all their time together, wreaking havoc on the household (and each other, whenever one of them couldn't fight back). The girl sent a sly look at her cousin, but didn't do anything until Miss Catherine was distracted by some swirly, indistinct wand movement on the part of Laina. Then she threw a block at Tommy as hard as she could. Mary had been waiting for it, and caught it in mid-flight with a quick, " _Accio block!_ "

" _Thank_ you, Miss Mary. Angel, pick a corner. You'll be staying there until Tommy is done with _his_ time out."

"Ha, ha!" the boy called from his corner.

"Which will be another five minutes, now, and five more for every time he decides to speak out of turn!" Miss Catherine raised her voice, adjusting the timer accordingly. "Angelica, corner, now!"

The girl dragged her feet, but she went.

"Some days…" Miss Catherine said. "Where was I?"

"I ought to be mindful of the honor bestowed by the House of Urquhart in allowing me knowledge of their Lammas ritual, Miss Catherine" Mary said promptly. "And my apologies if it was forward to ask."

"Quite all right, Miss Mary. As our fosterling, you have every right to be included, and would have been if you hadn't made alternative plans for your birthday. So, Lammas is the day for commitment. The light side of that is duty and responsibility, and the dark side is compulsion, binding, and coercion. There are lots of rituals that are meant to be performed then, and any new chapter of your life that requires commitment traditionally begins on that day."

"Like marriages?" She thought she remembered Theo saying something about that.

"Yes, many marriages happen on Lammas, including short-term, Talitian, year-and-a-day marriages, but also Auror intake begins as the holiday ends, and Hogwarts requires new students to respond to its invitation letters by that day. All the other magical schools do the same, and most businesses like to hire new employees to start on the first of August, because on Lammas, things are begun in a spirit of continuation."

Mary nodded. She had had no idea the wizarding world was so superstitious like that, but it made sense with what she knew of the culture.

"House Urquhart is a traditional house, which means we celebrate the Old Ways, the holidays like Lammas and Yule, and we're what they call 'Balanced'. We used to be considered 'neutral,' but that term's mostly been taken over by progressives, and now means people who don't really follow or honor the old ways at all, either light or dark. Balanced, on the other hand, means we celebrate both light _and_ dark, recognizing and giving honor to both, because both are integral and necessary parts of the natural and human world. The reason Slytherin House generally tries to find a scion of a Balanced family to lead their rituals is so that they can call on both the light and the dark. Since you're not dedicated to either, by family tradition or personally, you should have felt both energies at Yule."

Mary nodded, remembering the Yule ritual, now so long ago. "Dark was like anything was possible, and light was… excitement for the future, and being sad about the past, and happy to be there in the moment." She noticed when she stopped speaking that it had suddenly gotten very quiet in the room.

The younger children were watching closely, and listening to the older girls talk. Miss Catherine smiled at them, and explained quietly that they wouldn't participate in their family's rituals until they were seven, so this was all new to them, too.

"We wanna know," William said, sitting cross-legged next to Mary and Bryce.

"Oh, all right. I would have told you all before your first rite, anyway. But yes, sit." She ushered Liana into line. "You two can come, too, if you'll be good." Tommy and Angel scampered over from their respective corners and sat obediently beside the older children. Miss Catherine swallowed her dignity, and joined them on the floor, tucking her robes around herself.

"These little scamps," she said, "get to participate in the first solar sabbat, that is, the first solstice or equinox, after they turn seven. Generally I would take them aside and tell them about each ritual in preparation for it."

"But we want to know _now_ ," Laina whined.

"How about I tell you about each one as we work our way around the year," Miss Catherine offered. Mary thought that was probably a good idea. All she wanted to know about was Lammas, and what she'd missed out on, and there was no way the kids had the attention span to hear about all of them, especially Angel and Tommy.

There were scattered mumbles of 'okay' from the children, though it hadn't really been up for discussion.

"Lammas, like Yule, is preceded by a day of reflection. Because light is in ascendance, but not at its peak, one is encouraged to talk to others about one's plans for the coming year, but it is not required, like solitude is for the Yule vigil. Sometimes, people who are making a major commitment for the year will make a minor commitment for the day, like fasting from sunup to sunup, or a vow of silence among friends. It's a little bit of sympathetic magic, telling the universe that as you have done the one thing, so you will do the other.

"Rituals like weddings or welcome ceremonies generally begin on the 31st, and are finalized on the first. Most of that is symbolic, but it leaves time for the night, when the family rites honoring the Orderly and Binding Powers and the light and the dark take place, to be spent in transition.

"The Urquhart Lammas ceremony is a seer-ritual. We assemble just after sundown around that old oak tree in the smallest courtyard. We sit with our backs to it, and they pass around a goblet which contains a potion. The oldest man in the family, Lord Urquhart, now, makes the potion over the course of the day. Its recipe has never been written down, and he teaches each boy as he comes of age, so it will never be lost so long as the family line survives. Everyone takes a sip of the potion, and passes it along to the next person. It goes around until the cup is empty. The last person to drink is the one who invokes the Powers.

"This year it was my father. The invocation goes like this: 'We gather beneath the leaves of our heart-tree, strong and steady, family like the oak. We gather in darkness, holding light in our souls, to honor the Powers of Order and Binding, acknowledging and embracing the ties of our commitments and our duties, to family and friends, to ourselves, and to our people and the wider world. We witness what we would have come to pass, and what warnings may be offered in this, our moment of decision.'

"The magic rises up like a fog from the roots of the tree, and then you slip into a trance. You see the possible outcomes of the path you have been meditating on over the course of the day, and how it will affect yourself and those you care about, and all the ways it might go wrong, and everything you stand to gain if it goes right. The trance breaks when the sun rises, and the magic seeps back into the ground. The person who invoked the Powers stands and moves around the tree counter-clockwise, helping each one stand. He says, 'Go with grace, and make your choices, not in ignorance, but in confidence.'

"And then there's a big breakfast, and everyone usually goes and takes a nap, and in the afternoon, they finish whatever rituals they started the day before, if they are certain they want to keep that commitment. You don't ask anyone what they saw, but they can tell you if they want. I've decided not to speak about what I saw this year," she added, before Laina and William could say anything. "And it would be very impolite to ask why." The children looked disappointed. There was a momentary pause, and then, "Now, I do believe it's time for lunch!"

"Thank you for telling me," Mary said, feeling like the occasion warranted some sort of solemnity. She was sorry to have missed out on participating. _Next year_ , she thought. The younger kids leapt up with as much energy as they ever had, calling 'Thanks!' behind them as they raced for the dining room.

"Don't mention it." Miss Catherine gave Mary a quiet smile, and followed her charges, her youngest nephew balanced on her hip.

Wednesday, 19 August 1992 Diagon Alley

The afternoon after they talked about the Lammas ritual, Miss Catherine had given Mary a test over the family trees and lists of pureblood and Wizengamot families. Mary had passed – she would have been disappointed if she hadn't, since she was fairly certain she could copy those family trees in her sleep, at this point. This meant that Miss Catherine could safely shift to talking about something else (which she admitted she was quite relieved about, since she found talking about family rank and endlessly determining how different people were related to be terribly boring). Mary also suspected that the number of mistakes she made at meals was decreasing, as well, because the number of essays she had to write on proper behavior had fallen away to almost nothing over the course of the first week of August.

This worked out well, as far as Mary was concerned, because it meant she had more and more time, as the month progressed, to fly her new broom in the back gardens. It handled like a dream, and she was almost positive that wasn't just because she had gotten used to the terrible school brooms.

As a reward for all her work so far, Mary was allowed to choose their next topic of study. She decided that she needed to know about social settings other than tea-parties. She could count on one hand the number of words she had exchanged with any of the Urquhart men, and strongly suspected that there were things she ought to know outside of tea, even when it came to talking to women. Miss Catherine said that was a perfectly acceptable topic, and so shifted to talking about balls, and from there innuendo, which she said (with a completely straight face) was the main form of conversational gambit between men and women. When Mary comprehensively failed to understand why that should be funny, she was treated to an entire afternoon of Miss Catherine, Ms. Primrose, and Ms. Nanette telling her what they called "the facts of life." Mary hadn't known her face could get so red.

Surprisingly, very little was said about Hogwarts. When Mary asked, Miss Catherine said that they would wait to talk about school and social interactions with her peers when Lilian arrived to stay at the end of the month. Her Hogwarts letter arrived about halfway through August, book list enclosed. The letter itself only said to catch the train from King's Cross on the thirtieth of August. Classes would begin on the thirty-first, and as a reminder to all older students, only one pet was allowed per child. The Professor had written in a post-script by hand for her ward: _No snakes!_

From that point, lectures shifted from expectations at major social functions and decoding adult conversations to expectations in public, and around 'those of lesser status' such as shopkeepers and the unwashed masses of Diagon Alley. Mary thought she was getting to know Miss Catherine, and she was at first appalled to hear her speak of shopkeepers and 'peasants' as though they were legitimately inferior to herself. She hadn't been nearly so condescending about muggles, even, when Mary had explained her plans for the week of her birthday. It wasn't until the third day of 'How to Deal with Commoners' that she realized her tutor was saying these things with the driest, faintest hint of sarcasm, and a certain glint in her eye that suggested it was a bit tongue-in-cheek.

When Mary finally accused Miss Catherine of having her on, the older girl told her she could drop the 'Miss' in private. She explained that learning how to say things you didn't mean in such a way that others who agreed with you would understand, but those who didn't, wouldn't, was probably the most important lesson when it came to dealing with adults. Her exact words were, "That's what Professor Snape means when he says Slytherins are subtle. What you say and what you mean don't have to be the same thing, and a good Slytherin knows how to read between the lines and get at the meaning, not just the words." She also added that, "Prim owes Nan a galleon – she thought you were too young to catch on."

Madam Urquhart, and to a certain extent, Lord and Lady Urquhart, genuinely did believe themselves superior to 'commoners'. Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart had a slightly broader view, and Catherine and her brothers had been raised to say the 'right words,' but not to believe them. It was Catherine's responsibility to teach the kids what Lord and Madam Urquhart wanted them to know, but if she had her way, she would wait to teach these lessons until the children were old enough to understand the difference between what she wanted them to do and say, and what she wanted them to believe.

That was Sunday. Catherine had declared that Mary would be fit to be seen in public by Wednesday, and they planned to go shopping for her books and new robes that day accordingly. In fact, Mary did not learn much that was new on Monday – only how not to look like a stuck up wench while still maintaining standards (something she thought Pansy Parkinson could take a lesson in). Most of Tuesday was spent getting the kids ahead in their lessons, as they would have a day off with Catherine out of the house.

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Wednesday morning, after breakfast, Mary and Catherine floo'd to the Leakey Cauldron. Catherine had apologized for the inconvenience, but insisted that she was not confident enough in her apparition to side-along anyone who didn't also know what they were doing. Mary thought she was probably making the responsible choice. Splinching sounded terrifying. In comparison to that, she didn't mind the floo. She had used it to visit Mr. Fulton from Hogwarts the year before, and knew that it was just as uncomfortable as apparition, but in a different way – a decidedly dizzier and dirtier way.

She went first, stumbling out of the twisting flames directly into the arms of a tall, red-headed boy. It wasn't until he helped her back to her feet and out of the danger zone (the six foot square of pub-floor devoid of tables and lined with cushioning charms, for those even less coordinated than Mary), that she realized it was Percy Weasley. They made small talk while they waited for the rest of their respective parties. The twins arrived next, the second one following the first so closely that they bowled each other over. Miss Catherine was close behind.

"Greetings, Miss Urquhart," Percy said, bowing over Catherine's hand.

She graced him with a genuinely amused grin. "Likewise, Mr. Weasley. Percy, right? You were… four years behind William?"

"I believe it was five, Miss Urquhart."

"Well, give my best to William, please, Mr. Weasley. Miss Potter and I must be off."

("Potter?" "Not-Mary?" "Where?" "Hey, Not-Mary!" Mary waved at the twins as Ron fell out of the fire, taking out both of them with his lanky form. "Not-Mary! Hi!" "We'll catch you," "Later!" "On the train!")

"Of course, Miss Urquhart. Delightful to see you, as always." Percy nodded deeply in farewell, and both girls dipped slightly in response.

"Bye Fred, George!" Mary called as they slipped away through the crowd.

"Percy and Bill are the only Weasleys who care much for tradition," Catherine said, as she led Mary into the crush, heading up the alley toward Gringott's. "I was the year between Bill and Charlie in school, so I got to know them fairly well as we were all prefects together. Charlie's too rough and tumble to mind the proprieties, and honestly I think the twins were a bit much for poor Molly. Percy comes off as a bit of a prat, but once he gets his head out of his swotty arse, he'll be a good sort."

"I like the twins," Mary said. "They're kind of a pain, but they're there when you need them."

Catherine nodded. "Bit of an understatement, there. They were a _major_ pain, even as firsties. I can't imagine they've gotten any better with age. Any thoughts on the younger two?"

"Not really. I haven't met the youngest one, I don't think. Their only girl, right? Goes by Ginny, I think. The twins have mentioned her. Virginia?"

"Ginevra."

"Ronald is in my year, and I think I've only really talked to him twice. He doesn't like me because I told him I wasn't Mary Potter on the train before first year. Hermione and Lilian think he's a bit dense, but I only ever really saw him in Potions, and you know how Professor Snape is with Gryffindors, so it's hard to say."

Catherine seemed to accept this analysis of the younger Weasleys' characters, or perhaps she only let it go because they were at the bank. They made their withdrawals over the counter rather than take the ridiculous mine cart into the vaults. Mary was surprised you could do that, and when Catherine asked what she had thought they were there for, Mary was forced to admit she'd thought they were mostly for show.

Catherine was hard-pressed to hide her amusement. "Only mostly. They do actually do _some_ work, aside from intimidating the customers."

After the bank, Catherine headed not for Madam Malkin's, which she later explained would be full of new Hogwarts students, but for a tiny, hob-run shop around the corner from it – Peaseblossom and Puck's. Mary felt like a giant in the shop, since everything except the mirrors and fitting blocks was built on the scale of the proprietors, but Catherine swore they were miracle-workers with cloth, and Mary had to admit she was right. Unlike Madam Malkin's, where enchanted needles took the clothes in, the hobs of Peaseblossom and Puck's just snapped their fingers and the cloth re-worked itself to form perfectly even tucks and hems, the seams woven together without actual stitching at all. They tugged to let one spot or another out, and the cloth flowed like soft clay, sculpted to fit. Mary got to watch a fitting in progress before it was her turn.

The feeling of it was strange, as though she was engulfed in the hobs' magic while they manipulated the robes (and underclothes, as she had grown quite a bit since her previous Diagon Alley excursion) around her limbs. When the lead hob declared her fitting complete, the magic sank away, locking the clothes into their final shape. Mary thought they might be the most comfortable clothes she'd ever worn. They cost almost twice as she had spent the year before for the same number of garments, but she thought it was well worth it, especially when the hob at the register said they were enchanted to grow with the wearer, so that she wouldn't be caught out with too-short hems until at least this time next summer.

After the tailors', Catherine followed Mary to Daily's, the shop where Mary had gotten her boots (which, like the new robes, had a growth-enchantment on them, but one that was good for three years, instead of one), and they had them re-soled. They needed it badly, as Mary had gone through the entire year with only the one pair of shoes. When Catherine realized that, she insisted the younger girl get at least two other pairs – they settled on a brown, ankle-high boot, and a round-toed black leather shoe that Catherine called a 'Mary Jane' and also 'absolutely darling.'

They had lunch at a sandwich shop off the main Alley. Mary was beginning to get the impression that Catherine didn't care much for the shops on the main drag. Catherine was explaining that she had nothing against them for most of the year, but they were simply insufferable when the back-to-school crowds arrived, when Mary spotted the Grangers, who were clearly of a similar mindset. She waved them over, awkwardly introducing Dan and Emma to Catherine across the ribbon denoting the edge of the sandwich shop's outdoor seating area.

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"We were just looking for a place to lunch," Emma said, after the introductions were accomplished. "Would you happen to have a recommendation?"

"Oh, you simply must join us, Mrs. Granger," Catharine said with a polite smile, not missing a beat. She was well aware that the Grangers were the muggles with whom Mary had spent her birthday.

"Please, Miss Urquhart, call me Emma."

"Only if I am Catherine."

"Of course, Catherine. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, but we simply couldn't intrude." It might have been Mary's imagination, but she thought Emma sounded a bit more American when she was putting on her posh manners.

"Nonsense, Emma. We've yet to order; you and your lovely family are more than welcome."

"Well, if you insist, we could hardly refuse such a gracious offer."

"Not at all. Do come 'round. Tell the boy at the door you're to join the Urquhart party."

Emma ushered her husband and daughter (both of whom were looking at her as though she had suddenly grown a second head) toward the door of the restaurant.

Before they were quite out of earshot, Catherine said, "I like her."

Mary nodded. "Me too. From what I know of her, her upbringing was the muggle equivalent of yours."

"I didn't know muggles bothered anymore."

"Mostly they don't," Mary said, just before their waiter appeared, Grangers in tow. The seating was re-arranged so that Mary and Hermione had a table to themselves, and the adults had another nearby – close enough so that they could keep an eye on each other, but not so close that Mary would be expected to converse with Catherine or Hermione with her parents.

"It's so good to see you!" Hermione exclaimed, falling into her seat. "Did you know, Gilderoy Lockhart, that bloke who wrote all of our school texts, is signing books at Flourish and Blotts?"

Mary grinned. "No, I hadn't heard. And I'm surprised to see you, since I never got your owl! Your parents finally decided to let you go back?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, after mum sent a few nasty letters to Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall, and got them to promise to keep them informed if anything untoward was happening at school, they finally admitted it was rather unlikely for anything like last year to happen again next year. And I was grounded from reading for the month for lying to them. Lucky I finished my homework already. They actually _locked my books up_."

"I know, you told me." At _least_ four times, over three letters. Personally, Mary thought Hermione had probably gotten off easy. She was still allowed to do everything _but_ read, and she was sure the Ravenclaw had read all of the Standard Book of Spells Grade 2 last year. Yes, she would have to wait until Hogwarts to read the Lockhart books, but Mary was certain her bookish friend would manage.

"It was a close call on coming here today, though. We were just in on Saturday, you see. But mum thought they could both use a day off, and now they've got Padraig and Marcie working at their practice as well, they didn't even need to cancel any appointments. Still, two days was a bit short notice. I only got them to agree last night, so there wasn't time to owl."

"We need to get your mum to work on getting them a floo connection."

"Oh, Merlin, don't tell her that. She's been going around trying to get information about house elves for the last two weeks. I don't know if she's more angry about the state of that Dobby, or the fact that it's slavery, or the fact that apparently there aren't any common anti-elf wards. We spent an hour at the bank last week so she could talk to one of their ward specialists, and she said only a house elf can ward against another house elf. So I've been assigned to find and question an elf when we get back to school, and then go from there. I mean, they don't _want_ an elf, they just want to hire one to put up wards for them, but every time she owls the ministry to ask about it, she gets a nasty letter from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures saying that muggles aren't allowed to own house elves, pursuant to Section 54, Subsection Q of the 1897 Restriction of Interactions of Non-Humans with Muggles. I think we're up to four copies, now."

"So you're sure you don't want me to distract her with the floo?" Mary laughed at her friend. She could have sworn Hermione's hair puffed up as she got more irritated.

"No, it won't distract her, it will just be _another_ crusade." Hermione let her head drop to the table, only to have to lift it immediately as the waiter arrived with their food. "Before she knew about magic, she used to spend ages working with the PTA and the Housing Association for the neighborhood. Besides, can you imagine mum with easy access to Diagon Alley, or the Ministry, or _Hogwarts?_ Nowhere would be safe."

"I like your mum."

"So do I, but you have to admit she can be a bit… much, sometimes."

"Well, I could say the same thing about you," Mary pointed out.

"Where do you think I get it from?" Hermione threw up her hands dramatically. Mary couldn't help but laugh. "This is really good, by the way," she noted, taking another bite of her roasted chicken and swiss.

"Mine's not bad either." Mary had decided on something called a 'Mediterranean Special'. She had no idea what was in it. Feta cheese, definitely, but the meat was a mystery. It might have been lamb, but as it was a magical restaurant, it could just as easily have been some kind of magical creature. Whatever it was, it was delicious.

"Did you know my mum could talk like that?" Hermione asked suddenly, nodding at her parents and Catherine. Dan was nodding along, occasionally throwing sidelong glances at his wife. Catherine seemed pleased with the conversation, but Mary couldn't see Emma's face.

Mary shrugged. "She mentioned something about her childhood being a lot like what I was telling you about my lessons at the Urquharts, plus a bunch of other stuff like riding lessons and piano. It doesn't really surprise me. Aren't you the one who said she'd be a Slytherin?"

"Well, yes, but… I didn't expect _that_. What else did she tell you?"

"She's from an old Southern family, and had elocution lessons, which is why she doesn't sound like it… I think she was raised and disowned by her grandmum, she didn't say why… Oh! And she said something about teaching you to dance before your cotillion. Why?"

"Why? Because I didn't know any of that! Mum's a complete mystery! I know she's from Georgia, and she ran away from home to go to college, and had to leave the States for some reason in the middle of dental school, so she transferred to the Royal College in London. Mum and Dad call that the Kafkaesque Nightmare. She met dad there, and they got married and had me a few years later. That's it."

"Well, apparently before all that, she was a society girl."

Hermione made a harrumphing noise and muttered something that might have been, "She could have told me!"

Mary finished her sandwich before changing the subject. "So where have you been all day? And where do you have left to go?"

"Oh, well, we started at Flourish and Blotts, of course. We already got the school books last time, but mum wanted something on elves –" "Of course," Mary interjected. Hermione grinned. "Of course. And dad got some advanced theory book. I think they're just trying to torture me, surrounding me with the only thing I can't have."

"Oh, like you didn't get something to take with you."

"Of course I did. What do you take me for? A Basic Guide to Potioneering. Mum confiscated it already, of course. It's supposed to be about how to make new potions, or change their effects. Mr. Brown said it's the best for theory, and I figured since Professor Snape doesn't really teach it…"

"Mr. Brown the apothecary?"

"Yes, didn't I say? We've been to Flourish and Blotts, Brown's Apothecary, and Scrivener's, of course. We still need to go for robes and I've been thinking about getting a pair of boots like yours. Where did you go?"

"Daily's, for the boots, and you have to go to Peaseblossom and Puck's for robes. It's around the corner from Madam Malkin's, and it's run by _hobs_. They're amazing, look at this!" She dug a shrunken robe out of the bag the hobs had given her. "No seams! They just snap their fingers and pull things around and they _fit_. I mean, they're more expensive, but so comfortable, and they've got sizing enchantments on them, so they'll fit for the whole year."

"How much more expensive?"

Mary cringed, "Like twice as much?"

But to her surprise, Hermione looked like that sounded reasonable. "If they really do fit all year, mum would probably go for it. We came back over Christmas and replaced my robes last year, and they're short again already. Do they do underthings?" Hermione gestured toward her chest. Mary nodded. She herself was still flat as a board, but Hermione was starting to fill out. "Excellent. Mum was worried my things wouldn't fit right before the winter hols. Peaseblossom and Puck's, you said? Like from Shakespeare?"

"Yes, and I have no idea."

"What? It's a Midsummer Night's Dream! You have to read it! I'll bring my copy from home. And Daily's for boots?"

Mary rolled her eyes at the offer of literature – Hermione offered her a new book at least once a week, even by letter – and said, "Yes, Daily's for boots. It's across the street from Madam Malkin's, and the tailor shop is right around the corner, next street toward Gringott's."

"Alright, toward Gringott's. Got it."

Just then, with impeccable timing that suggested they had been eavesdropping on the girls, both Emma and Catherine rose from their table and floated over to Mary and Hermione, Dan wandering behind them. "Ready to go, girls?" Emma asked.

Mary nodded, folding her napkin and arranging the silverware to signal she was done. Hermione said, "Yes, mum," and the girls followed the adults back through the restaurant.

The two groups parted ways at the main alley. Hermione hugged Mary goodbye, and whispered in her ear, "Watch, mum's up to something!" before pulling away and saying she looked forward to seeing her on the train. Mary promised letters in the meanwhile.

Emma was saying how lovely it was to meet Catherine, and wishing Mary a good remainder of her holidays. Dan, still looking a bit lost, echoed her sentiments. Mary thought she saw something like a smirk twitch across Catherine's face at his farewell.

And then Catherine, to everyone's surprise, including, apparently, her own, said, "It was lovely to meet you as well, Emma. You simply must join me for tea one day after the girls are back to school."

"Of course," the older woman said with a polite smile, with a deep nod in lieu of a curtsey - her trousers simply didn't allow the more formal courtesy, which Mary thought was awfully convenient, since even she had no idea how a muggle matron should curtsey to a much younger unmarried witch from a Noble house. "I shall look forward to your owl."

Catherine curtsied in return, and, with that, they left, the Grangers headed back toward Madam Malkin's, and Mary and Catherine toward the bookstore. "I just invited a muggle to tea," Catherine said. She looked a bit stunned, as though she could not imagine why she might have done such a thing. "I can't bring a muggle to the Mansion..."

"Don't worry," Mary said, smirking at her tutor. "From what I gather, Emma Granger has that effect on most people."

"I suppose I'll have to owl her now… Perhaps we could go to… no…"

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Catherine was almost immediately distracted from her worries about whether and how she could actually manage to have tea with Emma (without her grandmother realizing that she was associating with muggles), by a crush of people as they entered the bookstore.

The book signing that Hermione had mentioned was still going on. From the banner above the door, Mary suspected Hermione might have missed out on seeing the celebrity entirely, since it had apparently started at half-past twelve. That might have been for the best.

Lockhart, the author, was set up near the door, surrounded by posters of his own face, and a line of middle-aged witches wound through the shop. A photographer was hovering around, taking pictures of the signing. Catherine glared haughtily at anyone who came within two feet of her, clearing a path through the crowd of onlookers with an attitude Mary had never seen her put on before. It was sort of 'bored' crossed with 'incredibly irritated by your very presence,' crossed with 'I will kill you for breathing wrong and not even blink.' It reminded her a bit of a more-threatening…

"Lord Malfoy." _Yes, Malfoy!_ Mary thought, then realized that she hadn't been speaking aloud, and Catherine was actually greeting a tall man with long, white-blond hair, and a pointy face – Draco's father, whom Mary had met at the train station at the beginning of summer.

"Miss Urquhart," he replied, bowing over her hand.

"Lord Malfoy," Mary echoed, copying Catherine's curtsy.

"Miss Potter," Draco's father bowed over Mary's hand as well, though not so deeply, since she was underage.

"Father," came Draco's unmistakable drawl from the crowd, followed closely by his familiar face, "That muggle-lover Weasley is here. Oh! Hello, Miss Urquhart."

He bowed, and she nodded at him. "Mr. Malfoy."

"Mary," he nodded.

She nodded back, following his lead. "Draco."

Lord Malfoy gave his son an odd look, possibly because he was being so familiar with her, but said, "If you will excuse me, Miss Urquhart, I have an appointment I must keep."

"Of course, Lord Malfoy. Always a pleasure." She dipped a perfunctory curtsy, and he nodded.

"Miss Potter." Another nod.

"Lord Malfoy." Mary copied her earlier curtsy, because when in doubt, it was better to be _too_ polite, and she had rather lost track of things with the quick turn-around between greeting and farewell.

Now it was apparently Draco's turn to give an odd look, this one directed at Mary. She wondered if she had done something wrong. Pureblood interactions in the real world were terribly odd. It all made sense on paper, more or less, but they had just spent two minutes greeting each other in passing, only to not say anything of substance. They could have just waved, for all the information they'd exchanged.

Draco hadn't been told to come along, so he hovered near Mary and Catherine as his father made his way through the crowd, clearing the way with the same 'step back' aura Catherine had been projecting. Mary wondered if it was something Catherine would teach her, given enough time, or if she had to pick it up on her own.

She grabbed the copy of the Standard Book of Spells they had come to get before moving in the same general direction, after the required Lockhart texts.

They were just close enough to overhear Lord Malfoy saying through the crowd, "…disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't pay you well for it?"

A tall red-head who looked like an older Percy, and had to be Mr. Weasley ( _Lord Weasley? No, wait, that's still his father…_ ) blustered at the aristocrat. "We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy."

"Clearly," Lord Malfoy said. Mary didn't catch what happened next, but there was a thud of a dropped cauldron, and a clatter as the two men hit a bookshelf. Books fell, and people were yelling.

Mary thought she heard one of the twins yelling, "Get him, Dad!" and a woman was shrieking, "No, Arthur, NO!"

The three shop-assistants who had been roaming the floor converged on the two men as the nearby shoppers pressed away, knocking over two different displays. And then, when the employees couldn't seem to get a handle on things, the celebrity author swanned over, photographer in tow. Puffs of purple smoke were appearing over patrons' heads as he flashed several pictures of the scuffle.

"What's all this? What's all this?" he said, very loudly and smarmily. "I know you're all eager to see me, but, gentlemen, really… a _bookstore brawl?_ "

Silence fell as most people turned their attention to Lockhart, and then Lord Malfoy's voice floated over the crowd. "Here, girl, take your book – it's the best your father can give you." And with that, Lord Malfoy swept from the shop. Draco, who was caught in the crush near Mary and Catherine, fought his way free, and Mary watched them walk past the shop window a moment later, the boy smirking over his shoulder.

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"What do you think that was about?" Mary asked, as the shopkeepers hustled most of the book signing guests out, loudly announcing that the event would be postponed for half an hour while they fixed the displays. She grabbed the books she needed and made for the till.

"With Lucius Malfoy? Who knows? Probably something incredibly petty. He doesn't know when to just let things go. I heard he got caught up in those Muggle Artifacts raids that have been going on. Could be something to do with that. It's all a bit stupid, really. I don't know anyone who _doesn't_ have a few enchanted muggle artifacts lying around. But then, I suppose it gets the ministry their fines –"

Catherine's speculation on the misuse of muggle artifacts and the relative merits of ministry raids was cut off by the celebrity author's smarmy voice calling out from behind them: "That _can't_ be _Mary Potter_!"

 _Bloody hell, we were almost out!_ Mary thought, taking her change and turning around slowly.

The crush had cleared, for the most part, or Mary suspected it would have been much worse. Still, the blonde wizard swept up to her, in forget-me-not blue robes that matched his eyes exactly, and flung his arm around her, shouting jovially that together, they were worth the front page. She froze in shock, and before she could decide what to do, the camera flashed.

Mary squawked in protest (though she decided immediately that she would never admit that particular sound had come out of her mouth), trying to push the awful man away, and Catherine started haranguing the photographer at once, demanding that he expose the shot. He refused, holding the camera well out of her reach, and declaring that it would be in the Daily Prophet come morning.

The horrid celebrity ignored their spat, holding Mary tightly in place as he announced to the remaining patrons (many of whom were his fans, who had refused to leave when asked – just as pushy as the man they had come to see, apparently), that Hogwarts would soon be "getting the real magical me." He had valiantly taken on the mantle of Hogwarts' DADA professorship. Mary hoped he died, just like Quirrell. She elbowed him in the gut and finally escaped him, nearly running from the bookstore in her rush to get away from the foul, overbearing creature, his comment about "feisty young girls" echoing behind her.

"Are you all right?" Catherine asked, following with the bag of books.

"No." Mary was leaning against a wall and glaring at passers-by. "I hate being touched, and he wouldn't let me go! All he wanted was a stupid publicity shot, and he didn't even _ask_. Did you at least destroy the wretched picture?"

"Sorry, Mary. He wouldn't hand it over, and I followed you instead of just hexing the bastard."

Mary sighed heavily. She supposed it was better that Miss Catherine Urquhart wasn't on the front page of the Prophet for assaulting a photographer, but that didn't mean _she_ wanted to be there, with some horrible picture with some poncy, self-obsessed idiot assaulting her. It was so galling to be _used_ like that.

"Do you want to just head home?" Catherine asked, sounding much more kindly and concerned than she had ever been toward Mary before.

"No. We just need to go to the apothecary and the stationary store, right? Let's do that, so we don't have to come back."

Catherine nodded and led the way down the Alley. The last two stops were completed quickly. Mary didn't mind: The new 'professor' had managed to completely ruin her shopping mood.


	4. A Warning Aborted

**Chapter 3: A Warning Aborted**

[In which our heroines return to Hogwarts, and while some things change, most stay the same.]

Monday, 24 August 1992 Urquhart Mansion

Lilian arrived at the Urquhart Mansion on the Monday before she and Mary were to return to Hogwarts. To Mary's immense surprise, she greeted Catherine formally and correctly, and successfully hid her awe at the sheer scale of the house. (Mary briefly thought that Lilian must have more money than she had thought, but the other girl explained later that evening that though the Moons were quite well-off, they weren't anything like so rich as to have a _mansion_.) 'Miss Moon' was introduced to the older women of the family at tea, and managed to successfully hold a conversation with Madam Urquhart, without a single snub passing the old lady's lips. Mrs. Urquhart even complimented Lilian's mother on how well she had raised Lilian, and Lilian accepted the compliment on her mother's behalf, promising to pass it on without batting an eyelash.

After tea, a very amused Lilian explained to her slightly shell-shocked friend that she had actually been raised with all the "proper pureblood nonsense," but had simply been embracing the relatively lax social standards and general informality of Hogwarts all year.

Mary had practically dragged Lilian into the sitting room she and Catherine generally occupied between tea and supper. "What was _that_?"

"Mother was a Rosier once upon a time," Lilian said with a shrug, as though that really did explain everything. It sort of did. Rosier was a Noble House.

"Why didn't I know that?" Mary asked Catherine, who was pretending to read a novel nearby, while actually just grinning at Lilian's prank.

"Moon is a Common House," the older girl explained. "You've only looked at the family trees for the Old Families, and they're all Wizengamot Nobles. And there's just _so many_ Rosiers, I didn't make you memorize the ones that married out of our set."

"Father's family has only been pureblood for five or six generations," Lilian added, "and they've raised dogs longer than that. It's a peasant occupation, according to her lot," she nodded at Catherine, who made a rude gesture in response – Mary was finding that Just Catherine was a lot less formal and proper than 'Miss Catherine'. "But mum's father was something like twelfth in line for the head of the house before the last war, so they didn't mind that she wanted to marry common, so long as she stuck with a pureblood, and she thought she was well out of it, distancing herself from her cousins' reputations. She did raise all of us well enough to visit grandmother Rosier, though, and hold a polite conversation."

"So you could have been helping me learn all this last year? Why didn't you say anything, you daft doxie?" Mary threw a pillow at Lilian, who caught it and tossed it back.

"You did well enough for Hogwarts. How was I to know you were going to spend all summer with one of the Old Families?"

"She's not old enough, anyway," Catherine said from her sofa.

"What?"

"It's true. Proper training goes until you're presented to society, either the midsummer or midwinter after you turn fifteen. Miss Cat, here, is stuck teaching all the little Urquharts until the next girl is fifteen or her grandparents marry her off."

"Purebloods are weird," Mary grumbled, as Catherine sent a Stinging Hex at Lilian, who dodged easily.

"I told you that you could call me 'Catherine,' not 'Miss Cat,'" she snapped.

"Same difference," the younger girl said with her usual cheeky grin.

Mary thought it was funny to watch Lilian and Catherine interact. The first time Lilian spoke back to Catherine, Mary was shocked, but Lilian was used to having older siblings, and Catherine might be the youngest in her generation in the house anymore, but she had been raised with younger cousins, just like the little Urquharts. She fell into the older-sister role easily.

"Peasant." Catherine flipped a page, affecting boredom.

Lilian rolled her eyes. "Snob."

"Wait, what did you mean I did well enough for Hogwarts?"

Catherine sighed. "Remember how I told you we would wait until Lilian joined us to discuss interactions with your peers?"

"Yes…"

"Well, that was because Hogwarts has much different standards of interaction than proper society. Between mixing with other classes and half-bloods or muggleborns who have completely different upbringings, and the fact that you're not always under the watchful eye of grandparents or great-grandparents, people kind of let the proprieties slide. I know that there's been a certain informality about Hogwarts since at least the early 1900s, and probably before then. Lilian, here, is going to help me teach you how to deal with peers your own age, in and out of school."

The soon-to-be second-years looked at each other, and spoke at the same time: "She is?" "I am?"

"Yes."

And so the last week of break was spent painfully un-learning all the new habits Mary had drilled into herself over the course of the summer, in favor of formalizing the code of behavior she had more-or-less picked up on in Slytherin over the course of the previous year. The rules were much easier to deal with than those outside of school:

Call your friends by their given names, and familiar peers, such as your housemates, by their family names. (Though as Lilian noted, girls had more leeway to call people by their first names than boys.) Address anyone older than yourself and any stranger as 'Miss' or 'Mr.' unless they invited informality. Always call professors 'Professor' or 'sir' or 'ma'am.' If by some stroke of fortune a professor extended an offer of informality, one could call them just by their last name in conversation or their first name to their face.

Don't bow or curtsey to anyone, though nods of greeting and farewell were common and perfectly acceptable. (Catherine went on a long tangent about how kisses of greeting and farewell were used among the "adults" in fifth year and up as a prelude to courting, before realizing that the girls probably wouldn't care about any of that for another year or two at least.)

Do not correct anyone's behavior. If they didn't know better already, it looked bad for their house, but it wasn't the other students' job to teach them. If other purebloods were embarrassing themselves and needed to be reminded of their status, they could be reminded of this fact by calling them 'cousin.'

It was not technically a rule, but frowned upon nonetheless if one failed to hide one's emotions. Any display of emotional distress would be considered a weakness by one's peers. Following from that, it was considered uncouth to go waving one's hand in the air to answer questions ("Remind me to tell Hermione that," Mary had asked Lilian, who only laughed in response).

And finally: Maintain appropriate grace and decorum at all times, including meals. (Mary thought that this was why Slytherin House as a whole was so disapproving of the School Song.) Following from this, it was considered stuck-up, affected, or a sign of ill-breeding if one were to use out-of-school manners _in_ school, simply because it was improper and _not done_.

The final rule had its exceptions, of course: if one had attained a certain level of power within the school, or Slytherin house, one could demand to be treated with proper respect, and institute a short-lived formality within Hogwarts, as Lilian pointed out Miss Carmichael preferred for her court. Catherine said that one must demonstrate fully and unequivocally that one knew, understood, and could follow the rules before deliberately breaking them, and then only in socially approved ways.

The three young women spent most of Thursday and Friday play-acting the roles of different classmates, teachers, and society figures meeting in different circumstances, in order to test Mary's understanding of the game. The best one, they all agreed, was when Isabella Zabini (Catherine) came to the school to inform Blaise (Lilian) that her seventh husband had "tragically" passed away. Mary had to express her condolences while responding to "Blaise's" subtle jokes about how odd it was that Isabella's husbands kept dying and then express to "Isabella" that even though she knew the woman had to be killing them off, there was no risk of her telling anyone, without actually admitting that she knew anything.

Mary failed – Catherine informed her that if she were Isabella, she would have just obliviated Mary first chance she got – but the conversation itself was very funny. Second-best, and slightly more useful, was Mary running into Professor Snape (Catherine) and Draco Malfoy (Lilian) in Knockturn Alley, the "sketchy" part of Wizarding London. Mary didn't think she was ever likely to be there, but it was interesting to see how Catherine and Lilian thought a "formal" interaction between Professor Snape and Draco would go.

Lilian left on Saturday morning, and Mary spent the day packing, double checking that she'd done her homework, and playing with the little Urquharts, while Catherine peppered her with last-minute advice. The best of it was probably, "Confidence will take you a long way. Just pretend you know exactly what you're doing and bluff your way through, if you have to," but "When in doubt, more polite is always better than less polite," and "If you don't know how to deal with a person or situation, pretend to be someone who would," were close seconds.

Sunday, 30 August 1992 Hogwarts Express

In comparison to the previous year, when the train to Hogwarts was Mary's crash-course introduction to the truce, the Weasleys, Draco Malfoy, and a cabin full of first-year purebloods who ended up in different houses, this year's trip was uneventful.

Mary floo'd to the platform with Catherine, who shrank and un-shrank her trunk to make it easier to transport through the fire, before fleeing the chaos of the platform with a quick farewell and a reminder to write. Mary met up with Lilian, whose family had been hanging around since just after nine. Her parents hadn't bothered to come see their children off – they said goodbye at home, and trusted Sean to keep an eye on Lilian and Aerin on the train as well as at school. Hermione and her parents portkeyed in at 10:37, and, as they had arranged by owl, Mary and Lilian met them at the landing pad.

The elder Grangers helped the girls load their trunks (Aerin said they could use magic once the train left the station, but not before), and said goodbye to Hermione, promising dire punishments if she failed to keep them properly informed about anything that happened this year, including anything bad. Hermione waved them off, and as soon as they were gone, stuck her nose in one of the Lockhart books (Mary had skimmed them, and thought they were like a cross between adventure novels and adverts for Gilderoy Lockhart). Mary was fairly certain she didn't notice when the train left. It quickly became a game for anyone who visited the girls' compartment (Fred and George, more often than not) to try to distract her from her reading. None of them were very successful. Hermione managed to finish two of the seven "textbooks" before they reached Hogsmeade station.

It was, Mary thought, a very pleasant trip, overall, with the exception of Malfoy's visit, which was awkward for more reasons than one.

Fred and George caught the girls up on their summer the first time they came through. They were working on designing a line of prank products to rival Zonko's, the most popular wizarding joke shop, and had spent most of it working on that, or stealing their father's flying car to go on joyrides around Ottery St. Catchpole (only on the ground). They'd tried to teach their sister, Ginny, to fly, only to find that she already knew how, and had been sneaking their brooms out of the shed for ages, firmly cementing her place as their favorite younger sibling. Their father had raided Malfoy Manor for enchanted muggle artifacts, which was why Mr. Malfoy had picked that fight in Diagon Alley. Their mum was going nuts over the fact that _the_ Gilderoy Lockhart would be teaching DADA. Mary informed them that _the_ Gilderoy Lockhart was a prat.

They stuck around for a bit after the Slytherin pranksters – Morgana, Perry, and Adrian – came in, mostly discussing whether Professor Vector was likely to let Perry switch into her class, because he really wanted to get out of Divination, but needed a second elective. The Muggle Studies Professor had retired at the end of last year, and the Slytherins had heard that Professor Kettleburn was leaving soon, so he didn't want to take either of their classes, for fear that he would be stuck with another terrible professor. The twins said that Vector was a good sort, and as long as Perry could manage basic algebra and a bit of statistics, and knew his numerology, he ought to be able to catch up easily enough. They hadn't started spellcrafting yet, and that was the point where it would be really hard to switch. Then they bounced away to make sure their sister was making friends, and Morgana, whose cousin had seen Mary with Catherine in the Alley, turned the conversation to what they had done over the summer.

The Slytherins didn't stay too long after Morgana got her questions answered (and threw a few wads of parchment at Hermione, who batted them away without really looking). After they cleared out, Mary and Lilian spent a few minutes talking about Mary's new broom, and whether they were going to go out for Quidditch. Lilian thought they should, though it was rather unlikely that they would make the team. Only one of their chasers had graduated, and all the rest of their players were quite good.

That conversation was interrupted by Aerin and two of her friends, who really only stopped to say hello, and then more permanently by the re-appearance of Fred and George, with their little sister in tow. They threw something at Hermione that made a loud banging sound and a puff of green smoke, and she stopped reading long enough to tell them off and greet Ginny before retreating back into her book. The boys ran off again, both missions (introducing Ginny to other girls, and getting a rise out of Hermione) complete. Ginny apologized for the behavior of her brothers, and made small talk until the lunch trolley arrived, at which point she excused herself to go find the lunch she had left in her original compartment.

After lunch, Mary and Lilian were trying to decide if they should go visit others for a while when a quartet of Ravenclaws from their year arrived. They chatted for a while about their summers and expectations for the year. The Patils had visited family in India, and Michael Corner had joined the betting pool on how the DADA professor would be removed from his post, with a galleon on total memory loss. Terry Boot, who was giving a skeptical look to the "textbook" Hermione was reading, said he would have been better off with fraud. Unlike most of their guests, however, the Ravenclaws actually sympathized with the fact that Hermione had been punished by not being allowed books for half the summer. They didn't even care why, just gave her understanding looks and excused themselves so that she could read in peace, much to the amusement of the Slytherins.

The quiet didn't last long, as Fred and George returned with their friend Lee, the Littlest Weasel (who arguably wasn't the littlest, now that Ginny would be at Hogwarts as well), and Neville Longbottom in tow. Neville and Ron, they declared, were being antisocial at the end of the train, and were being forced to get out and meet people. Neville tried to protest that they already knew each other, while at the same time making polite conversation and generally stumbling over himself, while Ron just pouted about making nice with Slytherins, his ears slightly red. Fred, George, and Lee, meanwhile, staged a very loud and distracting conversation about Percy and all the things he could possibly have been up to, while he was acting so odd all summer. They didn't leave until Hermione finally cracked a smile at them and they had a chance to crow over their victory in making even the most staid and boring of Ravenclaws laugh. She pretended to be upset that they thought she was boring, and then laughed at them when they apologized. They ran off cackling, and Lee ushered Neville and Ron out after them, following the chaos.

Blaise, Daphne, and Theo arrived next. They had heard similar rumors to Morgana, about Mary's summer experience, and were happy to chat about their own in exchange for finding out all she had learned in her 'society boot-camp,' as Blaise dubbed it. Daphne, who had, of course, started learning the same sort of things at age seven, quizzed her a bit, and declared herself impressed by Mary's progress. Mary was quite gratified by this declaration, because out of all the girls in her year, she thought Daphne was the most socially adept. Theo was fairly quiet. All he said about his own summer was that he spent it mostly with his father, except when he was invited to the Malfoys' little get-togethers with Draco, Pansy, and Millicent. Blaise and Daphne both rolled their eyes at this. Apparently the Malfoys' summer parties were little more than an excuse for the old Death Eater crowd to get together and drink. Daphne wouldn't have put it so baldly, but she nodded along with Blaise's characterization of the events.

Fay Dunbar and Zacharias Smith poked their heads in soon after that, and said they were looking for firsties and placing bets on their sorting (and also teasing them a bit with different lies about the sorting ordeal). Blaise and Daphne, who had been looking to make new allies outside of Slytherin, accompanied them, and Theo followed along with a vague, "this could be amusing." Mary wasn't sure if he meant Dunbar, Smith, and the firsties, or watching Blaise and Daphne court the other second-years. In any case, she and Lilian decided to stay behind, hoping that they might actually have a quiet moment. Keeping up such a level of constant conversation was a big change from Lilian's days spent roaming the countryside, or Mary's interminable lessons.

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Unfortunately, quiet was not to be had. Not ten minutes after the other five left, Draco, Greg, and Vinnie wandered in. Draco, true to form, wanted to know exactly what Mary had been on about, curtsying to his father in Flourish and Blotts. Lilian rolled her eyes at his bold question, and said that _obviously_ Mary had spent the summer with the Urquharts – why else would she have been shopping with Miss Catherine? Before the boy could think of a snide response (Vinnie and Greg just stood, looming quietly, also true to form) several things happened in quick succession: There was a crack, like the sound of a whip; a familiar, bug-eyed, long-nosed elf appeared in the middle of the compartment; there was a very high-pitched screech and a simultaneous "Dobby?" from at least three occupants of the carriage; and there was a second crack as the elf vanished.

"Dobby!" Draco called sharply, and the elf appeared again, with yet another crack. "Why are you here?"

"Master Draco is calling for Dobby," the elf squeaked, groveling.

"No, you stupid elf, why were you here the first time? And why did you leave?"

"Dobby is havings a message, but Dobby was not expectings Master Draco to be in the train with these other studentses. Dobby has done wrong. Dobby shoulds not be seen. Bad Dobby!" The elf began twisting his ears.

"Nevermind that now. Stupid elf. Where else would I be?" The elf stopped hurting himself, and Draco developed a considering look. "You two shouted too," he said, looking at Mary, and then Hermione.

"Erm, what?" Mary said intelligently.

"You yelled Dobby when he showed up. How do you know my family's elf?"

"No, I didn't," Mary denied it quickly, "I, that is, we, erm…"

"Oh, _honestly_ , Lizzie," Hermione sighed, apparently finally giving up on her book and snapping it closed.

"Hermione, what –"

Hermione cut her off. "You shouldn't be ashamed of how you were raised!" she turned to Draco and gave him her best 'you're an idiot' look. "We didn't yell _Dobby_ , we yelled _Bobby_. It's a muggle thing, like _Merlin_. It's short for 'Sweet Bobby Robinson' and it's something you say when you're taken by surprise, instead of a really foul swear word. Why would either of us know your elf?"

Draco looked like he didn't quite believe her. "Dobby, do you know either of these girls?"

"Oh, yes, Master Draco," the elf said, and Draco looked momentarily triumphant, doubtless thinking he had caught Hermione in a lie. Fortunately his attention was on the elf, because Hermione looked murderous, until Dobby continued, "Of course Dobby is knowings Mary Potter! Missy Mary bes famous! And Missy Mary is callings other Miss, Missy Her-my-nee."

Draco considered this for a moment. "Fine. What did mother want to tell me?" The elf hesitated. "Was it Father?" the boy sounded surprised.

"No, Master Draco, sir… is just… Mistress worries for Master Draco, and wishes for him to be careful this year at Hoggy Hogwarts, sir."

"My mother wanted to tell me to be careful at school?" Draco looked extremely irritated.

The elf nodded frantically. "Dobby was supposed to deliver message in private, but Master asked what Mistress would say to Master Draco, and Dobby must answer… Bad Dobby!" he yelled suddenly, biting one of his long fingers.

Draco gave his elf a scornful look. "Go home, and tell my mother that if she has anything to say to me from now on to use an owl, like everyone else!"

"Yes, Master Draco, sir!" Dobby said, nodding frantically again, and vanished with yet another crack.

Draco looked around the carriage, and immediately turned red, probably because his mum had just apparently sent a servant to tell her ickle Drakey-poo to be careful at school, but possibly because he still didn't believe them and thought they were up to something with his elf. "Crabbe, Goyle, let's go," he said, turning on his heel and stalking out of the compartment.

Mary and Hermione burst into laughter as soon as he left, explaining to Lilian in hushed tones that the elf had been trying to warn Mary away from Hogwarts since her birthday. Mary was impressed by the elf's ability to talk around the requirement to answer his family truthfully, but Lilian was even more impressed by Hermione's quick thinking.

"Is Sweet Bobby Robinson even a real muggle swear?" she asked, after the others explained about the scene at the Grangers' and speculated on whether the Malfoys were up to something, or if the elf was just mad.

"No. He's an American singer. My dad likes his music," Hermione admitted.

They were still laughing when Fred and George returned yet again, and demanded to be let in on the joke.

"Hermione was lying to Malfoy about muggles," Lilian said, gasping for breath.

"What did," "you say?"

"Sweet – Bobby – Robinson," Mary choked out. "He's a singer, not a swear word."

Hermione took several deep breaths and mastered her features before saying primly, "You had to be there." And then she devolved back into giggles.

The boys thought about this for a moment, then nodded at each other.

"Not a swear word, you say?"

"But it _could_ be!"

"We knew we liked you for a reason, Granger!"

"Sweet Bobby Robinson, was it?"

"I think we have a project, George!"

"Indeed, brother Fred!"

And the boys ran off cackling once again. The girls heard an angry-sounding twin yelling, " _Robinson_ , Longbottom! Watch where you're going!" just as the five-minute warning sounded throughout the train.

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The train rolled into Hogsmeade station after dark, and the students stumbled off, leaving their luggage behind. The first-years flocked to Hagrid's call, easily identified by their hats (which none of the older students bothered with, outside of classes). There seemed to be an awful lot of them. After they had gone (trailing several behind them, who asked nearby prefects where they ought to be, and then had to _run_ to catch up), the older students started meandering down the high-street of Hogsmeade. Mary wished she could see it in the daylight, because all she could really make out by the tiny crescent moon was the fact that buildings generally existed. They did walk past a pub that had its torches lit, the Three Broomsticks, but everything else was dark and closed. What looked like a hundred black stagecoaches were lined up along the main road, waiting for the older students.

The coaches were pulled by winged… horses? They looked kind of horse-like, at least. Or maybe like a cross between a horse and a dragon. They were skin and bones, dead black, with pupil-less, white eyes, and enormous black, leathery-looking wings folded at their sides. She had never seen anything like them before, and certainly never pulling the carriages. Hadn't they been horseless, when they showed up over the Winter Hols? "What _are_ they?" Mary asked, approaching the nearest one. Its head turned, keeping a blind eye trained on her, and it stomped a hoof restlessly.

"What's what?" Hermione asked, looking at Mary as though she had gone mad, just as Lilian said, terribly sarcastically, "I believe they call that a _carriage_."

"Not the carriage, you twit. The thing _pulling_ the carriage."

"I thought they were horseless," Hermione said. " _Hogwarts, a History_ made it sound like they're enchanted."

"Do you not see the horse? Dragon? Whatever this thing is?" Mary pointed to it, and it snapped sharp teeth at her finger.

"Noooo…" Lilian drew the word out.

"Horse-dragon-thing?"

A load of older students had pushed their way onto the carriages, and they began to roll away. About half the students were still waiting. A Ravenclaw prefect announced loudly for the benefit of a panicky, dark-haired girl, and all the other second-years, that they would simply have to wait until the carriages returned.

"Yes! Horse-dragon-things! Black! Skeletal! Massive bat-like wings! Pulling the carriages!"

Hermione and Lilian exchanged a look, then turned to Mary with something like concern in their eyes. "You're not having us on?"

Blaise, who had apparently been watching for some time, snorted with laughter at this.

"Blaise! You saw them, didn't you!" Mary accused the Slytherin boy.

"Yes," he said with a grin. "Yes, I did. And may I say, the look on your face when Granger and Moon _didn't_ was _hilarious_."

Mary glared at him.

"What are they then?" Lilian asked.

"And why couldn't we see them?" Hermione added.

"They're _thestrals_ , and you can't see them unless you've seen someone die."

Hermione looked like she was making a mental note to look up _thestrals_ when she got to the castle, but Lilian said, "You've seen someone die?"

"Yes, genius. And so has Potter, apparently."

"Yeah, Quirrell. We already knew about that. Who have you seen die?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Are you some kind of idiot, Lils? You can't just _ask_ that!"

Lilian flushed, much as she had when Hermione and Mary had told her off for saying that she wished _she_ had seen Quirrell die. Hermione was apparently thinking of the same instance, because she said, "You know, Lili, I'm beginning to think you have an unhealthy fascination with death…"

"Shut up, Hermione."

Blaise smirked at them. "It's fine, Potter, Granger. And in answer to your question, Moon: Husbands number three, five, and six." Then he looked past them and shouted, "Hey, Daphne!" running off after her as the carriages returned.

"Husbands three, five, and six?" Hermione whispered incredulously as the girls found a coach.

"It's kind of an open secret that Blaise's mum is killing them off. She's very good. She's on number seven, now, and they haven't got any real proof," Lilian explained, also in a whisper.

"It's one of those things you just don't talk about," Mary said.

"Are you serious?"

Both Mary and Lilian nodded earnestly as a Ravenclaw girl from their year, who was called Turpine or Turvin or something like that, joined them. The ride up to the castle was rather tense.

Sunday, 30 August 1992 Great Hall

The returning students filed into the Great Hall and settled at their usual tables, already populated largely by older students who had made it into the first round of carriages. Mary shook her head as she saw Hermione pull out her book again, and took a seat between Lilian and Theo. Slytherin table, as it had been the year before, was the quietest of the four, its conversation more along the lines of a susurration of whispers, rather than the joyful bellows of Hufflepuff or lively debates of Ravenclaw on either side. Gryffindor was practically roaring their greetings down the length of the table, always the loudest. Honestly, it was as though they hadn't all just spent eight hours on a train together.

Professor McGonagall stood at the center of the High Table, waiting for the latest arrivals to sit, and then set off a _bang_ with her wand. Silence fell.

"The Sorting Ceremony will begin momentarily. We ask you to direct your full attention to our newest students as we welcome them to Hogwarts, and to whichever house in which they find their true home," she said, and disappeared to fetch the firsties from their waiting room.

The convocation of ghosts entered the Hall a moment later, finding their places among the students or hovering near the ceiling and in odd corners, and after that, the new first-years followed the Professor in, to stand before the High Table, facing the sea of students. Mary tried to remember if she had been as scared as most of them looked.

The Professor retrieved the Hat and its stool from somewhere off to the side of the hall, and stood back to allow it to sing. Mary didn't remember the exact words of the last year's song, but she was fairly sure it was different this year. The tune was jauntier, now, and she was fairly certain she had disliked something about the Slytherin stanza before, and she didn't have a problem with it now. This time around, though, the Hat tried to rhyme 'idea' with 'library-a' in the Ravenclaw bit. About half of that table winced.

The song ended, and the hall burst into applause, Slytherin just as loudly as any other table. It was probably, Mary thought, because they cared more about tradition than the silliness of a singing hat.

Professor McGonagall stepped forward with her parchment, and explained to the new students that they would simply put on the hat to be sorted. Most of them looked very relieved. Then, without further ado, she called the first name:

"Abbott, Janine!"

A little blonde girl who looked just like Hannah Abbott from Mary's year stepped forward nervously, sat on the stool, and pulled the Hat down over her eyes.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Janine went to join the lions, who were cheering wildly. At the Slytherin table, a few coins changed hands, where people had bet on which house would get the first student.

"Avery, Courtney!"

A tall brunette who Mary thought was the cousin of the now-seventh-year Slytherin prefect strolled out in front of the crowd. There was a short pause, and then:

"SLYTHERIN!"

Slytherin cheered, drumming their hands on the table and benches. Charisma Avery whistled loudly as her cousin joined them. They were still not as loud as the Gryffindors.

James Blackwell became a Hufflepuff, and then Honora Blum became a Slytherin. There was a bit of murmuring along with her cheers, since Blum was not a widely known name, but before she reached the table, an older boy, maybe a fourth- or fifth-year, said that they were an old German family.

Bottle became the first Ravenclaw of the year, and Bumper became a Gryffindor. Ignotius Carmichael and Charles Carpenter, both of whom had older sisters in the House, came to Slytherin, and by the time they reached Creevey, a thin boy with mousy, brown hair, Mary had stopped paying attention to everyone but the Slytherins. It wasn't as though she knew many of the first-years, anyway. The only one she had met so far was the Weasley girl.

Aside from Blum, there were no surprises for Slytherin. Tracey Davis apparently had a little brother, Roderick, who got a few looks as he joined them, as did Artemis Seran and Blake MacDougal (who had a sister in Ravenclaw), all of whom were half-bloods. Victor Turpin (That _was that girl's name!_ ) and Rhiannon Prewett also had family in other houses, but they were both purebloods, so no one had a problem with them. Among the boys, Derek, Higgs, Rowle, and Young all had family in Slytherin already, as did Flint, Lestrange, and the two Rosier girls.

Ginny Weasley became a Gryffindor, to the surprise of absolutely no one, and Phineas Zimmerman, the last firstie to sort, went to Hufflepuff.

The Headmaster stood, looking as much like a storybook wizard as ever in his star-spangled robes and pointed hat, long silver hair and beard flowing. "Welcome," he said, "to yet another year, or, if you are only just joining us, to a most excellent _first_ year, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Before we get started on our delightful feast, I must, as always, say a few words: Xeriscaping! Mnemonic! Advise! Curmudgeonly! Thank you!"

Mary clapped politely, along with her nearby housemates. Lilian leaned over and whispered, "Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If this is not where you're meant to be, please make your way back to the train…" which was more or less how Professor Flitwick began each of his lessons: "Welcome to first-year Charms. If this is not where you're meant to be, please make your way to the correct classroom now." In fairness to him, they had actually had an OWL student wake up and leave after that announcement, one day at the end of last April. Mary smirked at her friend. It was good to be back.

After a full year of Hogwarts food, Mary had decided she liked the roasted chicken the best, so unlike the previous welcome feast, where she had insisted on trying some of everything, she actually managed to take a full serving of something, like a normal person. She talked quietly with Lilian and Theo about the new students, and from there how many of them there were, and why Slytherin had ended up with fewer than most, and the population boom that had happened after the end of the last war. It turned out that most of the school had younger siblings or cousins who had been born between 1982 and 1984, so there would be several large classes coming in over the next few years. Lilian was one of the few who didn't, as she was the youngest Moon in her generation. Theo volunteered that he didn't have any little siblings, but the two Rosier girls were his cousins – his father's sister's children. Theo and Lilian had then had a short conversation about how they were all related, and Mary very quickly began to see the advantages to the policy of just calling all the purebloods 'cousin.'

Then Lilian, bringing the conversation back to the population boom, pointed out quietly that there would even be more muggleborns now, as young muggleborns had been targeted toward the end of the war as soon as they started showing signs of magic. They hadn't been well-represented in their cohort or the few before them. Mary couldn't decide whether she ought to be horrified about that. On the one hand, she thought yes, because targeting children just wasn't right, but on the other hand, she had been targeted as a baby, too, so it was a bit difficult to get worked up about it. While Mary was considering this, Lilian started a conversation with Perry Wilkes, who was on her other side, and Theo with Blaise.

Rather than trying to break into either of the conversations surrounding her, Mary returned to her favorite hobby – people watching. Most of the new Slytherins just looked confused as to why no one was talking to them, or slightly withdrawn, or had caught on and were whispering quietly amongst themselves. Mary didn't envy them the experience. Her first day at Hogwarts was probably the longest of her life – they still had to make it through meeting Professor Snape. The few prefects she could see were talking to each other, probably planning their exodus. Professor Snape was also watching the Slytherins, and raised an eyebrow at her when she caught his eye. She gave him a small smile, and he gave her the barest of nods. A positive interaction, on the whole. Professor Sinistra grinned and winked at her before attempting to engage her on-again, off-again lover in conversation.

Professor McGonagall was talking animatedly with Professor Flitwick, and Professor Sprout was slowly leaning further and further away from 'Professor' Lockhart as he gesticulated at her. The Headmaster was talking to Professor Vector, and Hagrid was carrying on a booming conversation with Professor Kettleburn, though she couldn't make out his words over the din, only the occasional sound of his voice. A new witch with plain features and limp brown hair was talking to old Professor Babbling, who taught Runes.

Unfortunately, Mary had sat on the side of the table that only had a view of Hufflepuff, which was a bad choice because she didn't actually know anyone in Hufflepuff, and so had no one in particular to watch. In general, they were welcoming their new cubs, or kits, or whatever baby badgers were called, with open arms. She couldn't see a single Puff _not_ talking animatedly to at least one other person. She wondered what they thought of the Slytherins and grinned. Probably that they were all miserable, lonely people.

"What are you smiling at?" Lilian asked.

"Just wondering what the Puffs must think of us, being all quiet and un-friendly."

Lilian winked at her. "Didn't you know, those slimy Slytherins are horrible bastards, even to their own. They hate friendship and loyalty, and – oh, wait, Dumbledore's standing up again." Mary sniggered at the change of topic.

"Now," the Headmaster announced, "I do believe it is time for a few words more! First-years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all students. And a few returning students could use the refresher, too, I dare say."

He looked at the Gryffindor table, and the Weasley twins called out, "Guided tours," "For a Galleon!"

"Weasleys!" Professor McGonagall snapped, "Detention!"

"Sweet!" "Bobby!" "Robin-" "-son!" Mary and Lilian went very red trying not to laugh at that, especially when they heard Hermione's familiar giggle behind them. Draco, on the other side of the table and several people down, looked livid, probably reminded of his embarrassment on the train.

"Ahem! I have also been asked by Mr. Filch to remind you all that this year, as every year before, and every year after, there is to be no magic used in the corridors, before, during, between, or after classes. Ever. None. Not even if – Actually, no, sorry, Argus, if their lives depend on it, they may use magic, even in the corridors."

Most of the students laughed at this, even in Slytherin. The caretaker was less well liked than the Headmaster. At least he was just dotty, not _malicious._

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Please contact both Madam Hooch and your team Captain if you are interested in playing for your house. Following last year's inquiries, Madam Hooch notes that as only second years and up may own their own brooms, first years are highly unlikely to make the team, but they are welcome to try out anyway.

"Some of you may be aware that Professor Quirrell has passed away, and will be unable to continue as our Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor. Professor Lockhart has graciously taken on the role." Lockhart bowed elaborately. "Professor Pierce has declined to renew his contract for the Muggle Studies post, and so that position will be taken over by Professor Burbage." The new, plain-looking witch stood awkwardly and waved before sitting back down.

"And finally," continued the Headmaster, "older students may recall that I warned of the possibility of a very painful death for anyone who trespassed on the closed wing in the third-floor corridor last year."

"Quirrell was warned!" someone shouted from Gryffindor. Dumbledore ignored him.

"It has been brought to my attention that a total of ninety-seven students made one-hundred and forty-nine excursions into that corridor. Of these, sixty-two managed to reach the end of the obstacle course, twelve after it was fully competed. You are to be commended on your bravery and perseverance, and I offer my congratulations to you all on your adventurous spirit and not-dying, even as I must condemn your listening skills." He shook his head in mock-sorrow. "In the future, I urge you most stringently to consider well whether curiosity and adventure are worth the risk to life and limb you undertake in pursuit of an unknown goal." But his eyes were still twinkling, and they could tell he was pleased with them. Several other professors, including Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall, glared at their students or gave exasperated sighs. All (pretended) seriousness vanished from the Headmaster's face as he twirled his wand like a baton, ribbons of light growing from its tip. "And now, before we go to bed, the song!"

Slytherin, as was their habit, plugged their ears during the school song, abstaining in protest of the cacophony which resulted when no two members of any other house chose to sing the same tune.

Dumbledore sighed, a radiant smile fixed on his face, "And now, to bed! Dismissed!"

Then Mary had a moment of complete déjà vu, as a prefect's voice sounded directly behind her ear. "This is Gemma Farley, speaking. Second-years and above are to make their way to the common room asap, in order to meet the first-years when they arrive. The password is _Causinae resimus._ Please recall, you have a five-minute head-start. Again, the password is _Causinae resimus._ "

Mary was very impressed. The Direct Whisper Charm looked like it should be fairly easy to cast on a group, or to add one person at a time, but it was deviously difficult to cast on _only certain members_ of a group. Leaving out the first-years would have been a tricky bit of concentration.

Then another girl's voice said, "This is Meissa Tiffald, fifth-year prefect. First-years, meet in the entrance hall by the main doors in five minutes."

And with that, all of Slytherin house stood, the older students arranging quickly to meet with friends in other houses if they hadn't on the train (most had, or had standing meetings), before hurrying down to the common room. The firsties in their pointed hats meandered toward the main doors, several new Slytherins nearly being run down by the mob of Gryffindor firsties following their new prefects, while the Hufflepuffs waited for the hall to clear, and the Ravenclaws argued about who ought to do what. None of their prefects really ever wanted the job, according to Hermione.

Hermione caught Mary and Lilian's eyes and waved as she was swept out the door by a flood of upperclassmen. They would meet in the library tomorrow after classes, like always. Mary heard a Gryffindor upperclassman yell, "Bobby Robinson!" as a pair of oblivious Ravenclaw boys forced her into one of the Great Hall doors. She had to laugh. She wasn't surprised that the Twins were getting their new favorite "muggle swear word" to catch on, but she was a bit surprised it was happening so quickly.

Down in the dungeons, Mary and Lilian found spots near Blaise, Daphne, and Theo to wait for the first-years. Daphne and Theo began to discuss whether Draco's clique would try to recruit the new students as allies, and whether they ought to bother. While they did so, Mary recalled her first sight of the dorms, and marveled that she had ever thought Slytherin House was a unified, terrifying mass of people. It was clear to her now, looking around, exactly where the lines between each group or clique lay, even if she didn't know everyone by name or exactly what their relationships were, yet, outside of the now-second-years.

It was broadly understood that there were two cliques in Mary's cohort, one led by Draco, and the other by Blaise. Within these groups, Pansy and Draco led sub-cliques of three each (Pansy-Millicent-Tracey and Draco-Vinnie-Greg), while Blaise and Daphne were generally seen together, as were Mary and Lilian (and Hermione and Aerin, but they didn't count, because they were Ravenclaws). Theo tended to go off on his own or hang out with Blaise and Daphne. He was more Blaise's friend than anyone else's. Mary thought it might be worth seeing if any of the new students were interesting additions to her little Slytherclaw group, but she wasn't terribly interested in trying to recruit them just so Draco couldn't.

Professor Snape arrived a few minutes behind Mary and her friends, and the first-years nearly ten minutes behind him. He flicked his wand. 10:25.

"Two minutes faster than last year," the professor noted. Mary had to wonder if he'd written it down somewhere. "Congratulations, Strega, Tiffald."

"They didn't have Crabbe and Goyle," Lilian whispered. Daphne shushed her.

"I am Professor Snape, Head of Slytherin House, and your Potions professor," he addressed the first-years. "Welcome to the House. Please introduce yourselves, one at a time."

Mary distinctly recalled that no one in her cohort had wanted to be the first to speak.

A very short girl with long, wavy hair looked around quickly, then cleared her throat before Professor Snape could "choose" someone to go first. "I'm Melinda Lestrange," she said, then poked the sandy-haired girl next to her.

"Carina Rosier. I go by Carrie."

"Amanda Rosier. Mandy."

Mary stifled a yawn. Fortunately, from what she remembered, the returning students were allowed to leave almost immediately after introductions.

The other first-years stepped forward quickly enough, giving the names Iggy Carmichael, Courtney Avery, Teddy Rowle, Victor Turpin, Nora Blum, Charlie Carpenter, Mel Flint, Blake MacDougal, Will Higgs, Artie Seran, Travis Young, Ria Prewett, Gus Derek, and Erick Davis.

Mary was certain she would forget all of their names immediately, at least the first names, and would have to be introduced to them all again, one-on-one. But she was more concerned about the fact that they had to be up for breakfast in eight hours already. Compared to this, the Urquharts went to bed early.

"Excellent," said Professor Snape. "The first House Meeting will be Saturday, the fifth of September, ten o'clock. My office hours remain Saturday, seven to nine in the evening, unless otherwise posted on the notice board. Note that Calvin Strega and Meissa Tiffald are your new fifth-year prefects. You all know my rules and expectations for you. I expect you to abide by them, as always. Slytherin House, you are dismissed. First-years and prefects, remain behind."

With a sigh of relief, Mary retreated down the girls' tunnel, following Lilian and Daphne. Her room was exactly as she'd left it, and she only just remembered to set her alarm before falling into bed and ordering out her lamps. It was certainly not the longest day of her life, but she thought it might have been the longest summer. She was glad to be back.


	5. Pesky Pixies

**Chapter 4: Pesky Pixies**

[In which Lockhart learns from his mistakes, and the Slytherins have target practice.]

Tuesday, 1 September 1992 Hogwarts

The term started calmly enough. If Mary thought the Welcome Feast was familiar, it was nothing to classes. The course schedule hadn't even changed noticeably. Slytherin still had Astronomy, Herbology, and Charms with the Ravenclaws; History of Magic, Transfiguration, and DADA with the Hufflepuffs; and Potions Friday morning with the Gryffindors. Even the times were still the same, since they had the same number of hours for each course until third year. Mary supposed it was on rotation like the dorm rooms – the new first-years would have the old schedule of the now-third-years. Binns was still boring, Professor Snape was still prejudiced against the Gryffindors, and Professor Flitwick was still far too easily excited. Professor McGonagall was slightly less terrifyingly strict than she was in their very first lesson, but Mary and Lilian thought that was probably because everyone had made it through their first year without trying to transfigure anyone else into a tea cozy, so they had earned a tiny bit of trust.

The unchanged schedule, unfortunately, meant that Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had the new DADA 'professor' (after that display in Diagon Alley, Mary was reluctant to consider Lockhart a _real_ professor) before Slytherin and Hufflepuff. This was unfortunate for two reasons: First, Mary was curious whether the new celebrity professor would be competent, and second, Hermione was able to form her opinion of the sparkly-toothed man before either of her friends. She decided, based largely on the "textbooks," that he _must_ be a great wizard, and declared that what most of her class described as a "bumbling, idiotic lecture" was actually some sort of subtle lesson, designed to give them hands-on experience in dealing with sudden chaos and moving targets.

If it was a test, or a real lesson of some sort, the Gryffindor/Ravenclaw class had put on a rather poor showing, from what Mary heard. Not even Hermione was willing to say exactly what had happened, but the second-years had been spotted afterward looking distinctly bedraggled, and Neville Longbottom had been heard complaining to Ron Weasley about how the 'damned things trapped me on that chandelier, broke my wand when I fell…'. Most of the Ravenclaws were miffed that he had wasted the first half-hour of class making them take a quiz over his stupid books.

The Slytherin/Hufflepuff lesson the following day did not go particularly well, either. Mary would have liked to think it would have gone better if she hadn't already been in such a poor mood to begin with, but she suspected it wouldn't have really made a difference.

The reason for Mary's bad mood on Tuesday morning was named Colin Creevey. He was a first-year, and carried a large, flash-bulb muggle camera with him everywhere. He was small, and had mousey hair, and a very irritating, squeaky voice. His robes had a Gryffindor badge, and he himself obviously had a good measure of Gryffindor bravery (or reckless stupidity), because he approached the Slytherin table at breakfast and asked for a photo.

"All right, Mary?" the boy said breathlessly, taking a tentative step forward as Mary turned around to look at him.

"Who are you?" Her words were a bit rude, perhaps, but no more so than his assumption of familiarity.

"Colin," he said. "Colin Creevey. I'm a new Gryffindor…"

"And what are you doing over here, kitten?" Lilian asked. "Are you lost? Your table's back that-a-way." She pointed, and the other second-year snakes (and several nearby first-years) sniggered.

"No! That is, er, I… could you – would it be all right – d'you think –"

"Oh just spit it out!" Mary's porridge was getting cold.

"CanIhaveapicture?" the boy asked, very quickly.

"A picture?"

"So I can prove I've met you," Creevey said eagerly, edging closer. "I know all about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You Know Who tried to kill you, and how he disappeared and everything, and how you've still got a lightning scar on your forehead" (his eyes raked at Mary's fringe) "and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll move." Mary stared at the boy, stunned. A fan boy. She had a creepy fan boy. "It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you. Maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?"

Before Mary could even process the request, Draco jumped in, loud and scathing. "Signed photos? You're giving muggleborns _signed photos_ , Potter?"

"No, I'm not." She might have no idea how to deal with her fan boy, but she could definitely deal with Draco. She'd been half-waiting for him to say something bitchy in public since their encounter on the train.

"Everyone line up!" he called to the hall, "Mary Potter's giving out signed photos!"

"Draco Scorpius Malfoy, if you don't shut up this instant, I will owl your mother!" Mary snapped. She didn't know what she would _say_ to Draco's mum, but she was sure she could come up with something convincing to get him in trouble.

"How do you know my middle name?" the blond boy asked, momentarily derailed.

"It's in Nature's Nobility, isn't it, _cousin_?" _That_ shut the poncy boy up. Mary was more than willing to bet that he'd never expected her to have opened the most famous pureblood genealogy text, but that wasn't the point. She was sending him a message: if he wanted to get into a spat with her in public, she was much better-prepared now to deal with him than she had been the year before. He gave her the same, strange, almost confused look he'd given her in the bookstore two weeks before.

The Creevey boy was looking back and forth between the two of them, still holding his camera hopefully. The Slytherins were evaluating the power-play going on in front of them. Draco looked away first, and the tension dissolved.

Unfortunately, the call for signed photos had attracted the attention of the new 'professor,' and he arrived on the spot half a second later. "What's all this, what's all this?" he said, eerily reminiscent of the scene in the bookstore. "Who's giving out signed photos?"

"No one, sir," Mary said quickly. "A misunderstanding."

But Lockhart was ignoring her. "Shouldn't have asked! We meet again, Mary!" he thundered jovially, flinging an arm around her, just as he had in Flourish and Blotts. "Come on, then, Mr. Creevey! A double portr – ow!" Mary had spent several hours after the previous incident thinking of what she should have done in the bookstore. Stomping on the obnoxious celebrity's foot was only the beginning of the tortures she had imagined for him.

"Don't touch me!" She said, scrambling away, and then turned to the boy, whose finger was dangerously close to the shutter button. "If you take that picture, Creevey, I will make you wish you'd never been born!" Mary practically hissed at the younger boy. When he still appeared to be thinking about it, Lilian snatched the camera out of his hands, holding it above his head.

"Come, now, Mary," the 'professor' said, "one would think you don't want to be seen with me!"

Taking Catherine's advice on how to deal with obnoxious morons, Mary did her best impression of Lady Urquhart. "I find your presumption of familiarity distressing, Mr. Lockhart."

The wizard stiffened, as though she had smacked him, his overly-friendly attitude gone in a flash. "You will address me as 'professor,' Miss Potter."

"Of course… 'professor.'" The sarcasm in her voice was pure Professor Snape. There were a few titters amongst the other Slytherins, but Mary couldn't tell from whom.

The 'professor' looked as though he very much wanted to object to her tone, but didn't dare, lest he sound like a petulant child. All the Slytherins and most of the Ravenclaws who were still present were watching him carefully, judging him.

And then Malfoy, of all people, broke the tense and awkward silence. "If you will excuse us… 'professor,' we needs must be going. Wouldn't want to be late for our first class, would we?"

"Quite right, Mr. Malfoy!" The jovial Lockhart was back. "Well, off you get, then, off you trot!" And he swept back toward the High Table, where, it seemed, most of the other professors had also been watching their interaction with interest. Professor Sinistra winked at them, and visibly flipped a galleon to Professor Snape. Mary wondered what the bet had been.

Lilian tossed Creevey's camera back to him, and the second-year Slytherins trooped off toward the DADA classroom.

"Why do you get to be 'Mr. Malfoy' and I'm always just 'Mary'?" Mary muttered to Malfoy as they left the Great Hall.

"Because, _cousin_ , _my_ family has a reputation for using dark magic on those who don't show us proper respect. _Yours_ , on the other hand, is known for noble self-sacrifice and, generally, dying." And with that, Draco began to walk a bit more quickly, catching up with Pansy and Tracey and joining their conversation.

Lilian continued the explanation, "Plus there's the fact that most of the world thinks they know you personally from the stories, so they assume familiarity that's not really warranted. I mean, if half the stories were true, you'd be a Gryffindor. Well done, handling those two, by the way. Miss Cat would be proud."

Mary just groaned, and hoped that 'professor' Lockhart wouldn't be as bad in lessons as he was outside of them. It was already shaping up to be a very long day, and they'd only just had breakfast.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Lockhart strode confidently into the classroom, at least two minutes after the last, harried-looking Hufflepuff arrived. His robes billowed behind him almost as impressively as Professor Snape's, or might have done if they weren't a lurid orangish-yellow. He looked like an overgrown pumpkin, Mary thought uncharitably. Dumbledore had probably hired him for their shared fashion sense. She was sitting slouched in the back row, and re-arranged all seven of the "textbooks" so she couldn't see him from her seat. Lilian smirked when she realized what Mary was up to, and did the same.

After a few moments of surveying the class, Lockhart cleared his throat loudly. Silence fell among the ever-talkative Hufflepuffs. The 'professor' snagged a book off the desk of someone in the front row, and held it up so that they could see his winking photo on the front.

"Me," he said, pointing at it and giving them a matching wink. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award – but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by _smiling_ at her!"

He waited for them to laugh. A few Hufflepuffs obliged him, and Lilian passed Mary a note: _OM3 = funded the Ministry Yule Party one year; Dark Force Defense League is a bunch of nutters who 'fight evil' from their mums' spare bedrooms. Can't imagine what you have to do to only be an 'honorary' member..._

Mary stifled a snigger and wrote back: _I'd run from his smile if I were a banshee._

"I see you've all bought a complete set of my books – well done! I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about, just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in…" He passed out the tests, and declared that they had thirty minutes.

Mary was hardly paying attention. She was already skimming through the questions, and thinking that the Ravenclaws had been right to complain. It was all about their new 'professor':

1\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?

 _Something that wouldn't look out of place on an Easter egg_ , she wrote snarkily, looking at the pastel-garbed photos on his walls. She doubted any of the Slytherins would take this seriously.

2\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? – _If we knew, it would hardly be a secret, would it?_

3\. What, in your opinion is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date? – _Taking the esteemed position of DADA professor at Hogwarts. You know the last one died, right?_

These continued over three feet of parchment to:

54\. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be? – _The 31_ _st_ _of February, and a mirror, because he's obviously a total narcissist._

Just after Mary finished scribbling her last response, Lockhart collected the tests and rifled through them in front of the class. He didn't look pleased.

"Tut, tut. Hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. Puce, Miss Davis? And a few of you clearly need to re-read Wanderings with Werewolves – I clearly state in Chapter Twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples, not, as… seven of you have suggested, a mirror."

Mary looked around. Even some of the Hufflepuffs looked as though they were trying not to laugh.

"Fully half of you noted that if you knew my secret ambition, it wouldn't be a very well-kept secret. I see Professor Snape is training his little Slytherins well," the 'professor' said with a rougish grin, "but the answer we were looking for was from Break with a Banshee: to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions."

He winked at them, and set the stupid quiz aside, lifting a large, covered cage onto his desk.

"Now, to business… Be warned," he declared dramatically, "It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you while I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm."

Mary sat up and shifted her stack of books to get a better look at the cage. Several people in the front rows (all Hufflepuffs, since the Slytherins had chosen to sit as far from Lockhart as possible after breakfast) were leaning away from it.

"I must ask you not to scream," said Lockhart in a low voice. "It might provoke them." The whole class held its breath, and the man whipped the cover off the cage. "Yes! Freshly caught Cornish pixies!"

Zacharias Smith started laughing and couldn't stop, but Blaise and Lilian, on either side of Mary, actually looked pleased.

Theo, who was on the other side of Blaise, noted none-too-quietly that, "Generally one teaches a few spells before allowing free-target practice," but none of the Puffs or Lockhart seemed to hear him over Smith.

"You have something to say, Mr. Smith?" Lockhart asked.

"Well," Smith said, trying and failing to maintain his usual drawl through his laughter, "I wouldn't say my greatest fear is pixies."

"Perhaps not," the 'professor' said, wagging a finger at the outspoken Hufflepuff. Mary was certain that would come back to bite him, as Smith didn't take condescension well, even from teachers. "But they can be devilishly tricky little blighters, and dangerous in large groups."

The pixies were electric-blue and about eight inches high. They had pointed little faces, and very shrill voices. The moment the cover had been removed, they had started jabbering and rocketing around, rattling the cage bars and making faces at the students. There were at least two dozen of the things.

"Right, then, let's see what you make of them!" Lockhart said loudly, and then he opened the cage.

Pixies shot in every direction. Several went straight out the windows, showering the back row with shattered glass. The rest proceeded to thoroughly wreck the classroom, overturning the wastepaper bins, throwing ink and chalk at the walls, and lifting a boy named Hopkins, complete with his desk, six feet into the air before dropping him with a spectacular crash on top of Smith, who didn't get up. Mary was suddenly glad _she_ hadn't laughed. Lockhart put up some sort of shield around himself and sat back to watch. In a matter of minutes, most of the Hufflepuffs were disarmed, either by friendly fire, or by the pixies themselves. Mary saw more than one wand pitched out the window.

Lockhart just grinned, safe behind his shield. A pixie threw a framed photo at him, and it bounced away, glass shattering as it hit the floor.

The pixies were largely avoiding the Slytherin half of the room, as Blaise, Lilian, and Draco seemed to be having some sort of competition to see who could freeze (and summon into their respective piles) the most of them. Blaise was winning, with four. Draco only had two, but that might have been because Vinnie and Greg kept fouling his shots as the pixies bit at their ears and darted at their faces and hands. Theo was practicing a red spell, _stupefy_ , and had hit two pixies as well as Daphne.

"Oops. _Ennervate!_ " The girl sat up with a start, coming face-to-face with a leering pixie.

She swatted it out of the air with a rather vicious backhand. "Watch where you're aiming that stunner, Nott!"

"Sorry, Greengrass! _Stupefy_!"

" _Vi ál teró!_ " Mary snapped her wand at a nearby pixie. It crashed into the floor with a tiny crunch.

"Nice one, Liz!" Lilian shouted between her calls of _immobilius_.

Hermione had found the spell after the incident where Quirrellmort had been cursing Mary's broom, and she hadn't had an occasion to use it. It was only a hex, and she doubted it was what he had used, since her broom hadn't crashed straight into the ground, but it seemed to be good for this. She sent it at another one, but missed, hitting a boy named Rivers instead. He tripped, hitting his head on a desk as he went down.

"Sorry, Rivers!" Mary shouted, but he seemed to be down for the count.

"Nice one, Potter," Draco said, snickering, and then, "Vinnie, if you hit me one more time…"

Pansy, Millicent, and Tracey were working together to summon the pixies back into their cage, and knock them out with a close-range Sumerian Strike Hex, which was very like being punched in the nose, once they were trapped.

Draco stunned Vinnie and made Greg step away from him at wandpoint. His concern over his associates (Mary hesitated to call them his friends) distracted him from the pixie sneaking up on him with a bottle of ink. It was upended over his perfectly coifed blond head before he could blink, to the other Slytherins' amusement and his outrage. He sent an Immolation Hex at the creature in retaliation, but missed, setting fire to one of the few photos still on the wall. Photo-Lockhart grinned and winked as his face distorted from the heat. The real Lockhart looked a bit irritated.

Then there was a pixie tangled in Mary's curls, pulling as hard as it could to get free. "Ouch! Lilian? There's one in my hair!"

Lilian smirked, but froze the pixie before using a Detangling spell to retrieve it and throwing it into her pile.

It was about then that Draco, still dripping, realized there was no way he was going to catch up with either Lilian or Blaise. He cast a _terminus_ on each of their piles, which was like _finite,_ but was intended for multiple targets. The dozen pixies they had captured between them were suddenly loose again. Lilian sent a Stinging Hex at him in retaliation.

"Hey!"

"Oops. Sorry Malfoy, target moved." Lilian's tone held not the slightest hint of remorse.

The newly-freed pixies took flight, hiding behind Lockhart's shield and taking the others with them.

"What time is it?" Blaise asked in the sudden lull.

Mary cast a quick _tempus_. "Class ended two minutes ago."

The Slytherins, except for Malfoy, who was busy trying to _terego_ the ink out of his hair, looked around at the chaos they had wrought.

"Shall we?" Daphne suggested, nodding toward the door.

"Might as well," Pansy said, dropping the levitation charm she'd been holding on the cage. "Seeing as class is officially over, anyway."

Lockhart was trying to get their attention, but his shield obviously stopped sound as well as pixies and photos, because they couldn't hear anything he was saying.

"We'll be late if we don't get going," Lilian grinned.

And with that, they summoned their bags and scattered belongings, and filed out the door.

Blaise used a mass revival charm Mary hadn't heard of before on his way out – _"Concio omnes!"_ – to revive the fallen Hufflepuffs (and Crabbe) and all the knocked-out pixies.

The creatures fell on the still-disoriented Hufflepuffs until Theo, with a positively evil grin in place, sent a dark green curse sizzling at Lockhart's shield. Mary didn't know what the curse would have done if it had landed, but it caused the shield to crack and fail, as Theo had obviously intended. The pixies rushed the 'professor,' and the Hufflepuffs, with a few torn, backward glances, made good on their chance to escape. They tried to thank the Slytherin boy, but he claimed to have done it solely for the look on 'that poncy arsehole's face.' It had, admittedly, been quite good. Wide-eyed panic was a bad look on the flamboyant author. The other second-years got a laugh out of it when Theo imitated it over lunch.

Mary, the last Slytherin but Crabbe out the door, thought she heard the professor say a _very_ naughty word as one of the pixies snagged his wand out of his hand and made a beeline for the nearest window.

Lunch was spent at the Ravenclaw table, trying to convince Hermione that just because he was a successfully published author did _not_ mean that Lockhart had any business being in a classroom. His lesson had been fun, but he hadn't actually taught them anything, and had spent half an hour on that stupid How Well Do You Know Gilderoy Lockhart Quiz. Hermione wasn't having any of it, though, so the argument quickly devolved into Mary and Lilian simply mocking the studious girl for doodling 'Mrs. Hermione Lockhart' in her dayplanner.


	6. Much Ado About Quidditch

**Chapter 5: Much Ado About Quidditch**

[In which Lilian and Mary have a surprisingly deep conversation, Mary has a revelation about human nature, Colin pisses Mary off, Ron curses himself, and all that takes a back seat to Quidditch trials.]

Friday, 4 September 1992 Hogwarts

Aside from DADA, classes continued much in the same vein as the previous year. In fact, according to their syllabi, the first two weeks' lessons were nothing but review of the concepts they had finished up with just before exams. Mary appreciated this, because it helped her get back into the swing of schoolwork after the entirely different lessons she had had over the summer. Hermione, in contrast, quickly began to complain, because she didn't care to "waste time" going over anything they had already learned. After three days of the Ravenclaw's whinging, Lilian picked a fight with her over nothing at all (Lilian's ability to create problems out of the blue was simply amazing), and used that as an excuse to insist on staying in the Slytherin common room, away from Hermione, for the rest of the weekend.

Somewhere in the middle of the specious argument (Mary thought it might have started with Lockhart), Hermione declared that Mary was clearly on Lilian's side. Mary was somewhat at a loss as to how that was possible, since she hadn't said anything at all, or even looked at her sniping friends for the entire period of their spat, but she wasn't complaining: this declaration meant she was free to sit with Lilian in Slytherin, rather than feel torn between the two of them and guilty about siding with one over the other, as she normally did when they were on the outs. Life was, she reflected, much easier when everyone agreed about what side one must be on, and acted accordingly.

Lilian, dragging her back down to the Slytherin common room from the library in an apparent huff, broke into laugher as soon as Hermione was out of sight. "That went better than I thought it would!"

Mary stopped dead. "Wait, what?"

"You were tired of listening to Jeanie's moaning, weren't you?"

"Well, yeah, but… What just happened?"

Lilian shook her head in false disappointment. Mary knew it was false because Lilian liked to talk about herself, including her actions, almost as much as Hermione liked to answer questions. "I picked a fight with Jeanie so that we'd have an excuse not to hang out with her for the next few days. Obviously."

"I thought Maia was the one who said I was on your side?"

"Well, yeah, but only because I made her say that."

"How?" Lilian had a bad habit of taking credit for things that she couldn't possibly have done, like making Neville Longbottom's cauldron explode (again) or causing Mary's missing stocking to re-appear. Sometimes it was funny, but it was often much funnier to ask her how she had done it, which forced her to make up some kind of crazy scheme that would never actually have worked.

"Weren't you paying attention at _all_?" Lilian huffed.

That was… entirely unexpected. "No, I started tuning out your petty arguments after last Christmas." After Lilian and Hermione had returned from the holidays last year, they had begun to chafe at each other's constant presence, and had taken to sniping and bickering whenever they saw an opening. Both insisted to Mary that they did genuinely like each other, and they were still friends, but it was, she thought, a much more antagonistic friendship than either of them had with her.

"Oh. Well, fine, then," Lilian said abruptly.

"What, are you going to start sniping at me, too?"

Lilian sighed. "No, it's just… how are you planning on learning how to manage people if you don't ever pay attention to that sort of thing?"

Mary looked at her friend in astonishment. "I manage people just fine."

Lilian rolled her eyes. "No, you, like… deal with them when you have to, or write them off, but I don't think I've ever seen you work someone around to get them to do what you wanted."

"I have everything I want," Mary said, almost without thinking. She hated asking anyone for anything. If she couldn't get it herself, it wasn't important enough to pursue, or at least that was mostly what she had convinced herself. But she did well enough on her own.

"Don't be stupid, of course you don't. No one does."

Mary glared at her friend. "No, I'm pretty sure I do."

Now it was Lilian's turn to be astonished. She looked around, and then quickly dragged Mary into an empty classroom. "Come again?"

"I… have everything that I want."

"You can't have. It's not possible."

"Why not?" Mary was starting to get a bit irritated now. Who was Lilian to say what Mary did or didn't want? "I have a good place to stay, warm bed, good food. I'm learning magic, and I've got a pretty good idea of how to fit in, anymore. I don't have to deal with my awful relatives, and you and Hermione are good company, most of the time… what is that look? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Lilian rearranged her face to look less sad. "Mary," she said seriously, "those things, a place to stay, and food, and decent company and education… they're not things you _want_ – no, don't say whatever you're thinking yet, just wait like, one second. They're things you _need._ Like, basic human rights. You shouldn't have to make people give you those. I'm saying you have to have things you _want_ , that would make you happier to have, outside of what you just need to get by."

"I am happy!" Mary objected. There was nothing wrong with her life, now that she was back at school and Quirrell was dead. Lockhart could stand to go as well, but she could stay out of his way.

But Lilian shook her head. "There has to be something. You're a Slytherin. You can't be ambitious without wanting anything. It's just… not human nature, to not want _something._ "

"Like what?"

"Like anything!" Lilian sounded frustrated. "Like a new broom, or time alone, or I don't know, whatever!"

"I just got a new broom. It's not like I needed to ask anyone for that."

"What about, like… getting the Twins to prank Malfoy during breakfast or something?"

Mary shrugged. That would probably be funny – the Weasleys almost always were – but she would never think to ask for it, just because it would amuse her. "I guess I've never thought about it."

"You… you've never thought about what? Pranking Malfoy?"

Mary shook her head. Completely aside from the idea of asking the twins to do something they'd do anyway, she'd never been as content in her life as she had been since she came to Hogwarts, and before then, she had wanted the things Lilian said were 'needs.' She hadn't given much thought to anything else she might _want_. "No, wanting much more than I've already got."

"Not even when, like, Hermione's being really irritating, and you just want her to shut up? Or when the elves give us kippers three days in a row, when I know you like bacon better?"

Mary shrugged. "I guess not. I mean, I can put up with most things and just wait it out. We're always going to have bacon again eventually." And Hermione would always find a new topic, or Lilian would pick a fight with her.

"You shouldn't have to just _put up with_ everything, though! What about with Hermione? Would you have not said anything, if I didn't? She was being awful! Or like, right now. You're clearly uncomfortable, but you're still here, even though you clearly don't _want_ to be. Why?"

"Because you dragged me in here!"

"So you just always let other people have their way?"

Mary must have hesitated too long, because Lilian spoke again.

She sounded outraged. "Powers above! You do, don't you! I don't think I've ever seen you argue with anyone about anything!"

"I would if it was important!" Mary tried to defend herself.

"Like when? Name one time where you've actually taken something you wanted."

She had demanded her Hogwarts letter, once upon a time, but she hadn't gotten it. "I, erm… stomped on Lockhart's foot the other day?"

"Self-defense. You were just stopping him from using you. It's not the same as actually going after something."

"I just…" Mary was stumped. She couldn't actually remember fighting to get something. She didn't ever _start_ arguments with anyone. Hermione had stopped talking to her the year before over the snake thing, but that hadn't been her fault, and even before that, the only reason she went after Draco was to protect herself and make the rest of the Slytherins back off. There was that time in the obstacle course, but she was pretty sure that was dangerous – it wasn't a matter of wanting to drink that potion or not, but whether it was a good idea or not, and it clearly hadn't been. She'd said some pretty mean things to Dudley, but only as pay-back for all the times he hit her. Usually Lilian took the lead when they were arguing with Draco, or even when they had been trying to get Hagrid to get rid of Norbert. When they'd gone out in the forest after the injured unicorn, Lilian and Draco and even Hermione had objected, but Mary had kept her mouth shut.

Lilian was waiting, quietly, studying Mary's face as she tried desperately to think of even one time that she had done something just because she wanted to, and not because she thought she ought to, or to save her own skin or that of her friends. She really couldn't. She'd played with the Weasleys over winter break, but only because they had invited her, and even when she snuck out and found the Mirror, she was just continuing the exploring project she had started with Lilian and Aerin.

"Maybe you're right," she admitted, grudgingly.

"Of course I am," Lilian said automatically. "What am I right about?" She couldn't have forgotten the question she asked?

"I… I don't do things just because I want to. I was never allowed to, I guess…" She trailed off, hoping that Lilian wouldn't try to get her to talk about the Dursleys now.

Thankfully, the other girl said, "Right! _That's_ what I was saying. _And_ you have a bad habit of just putting up with bad situations or irritating things, and hoping they'll go away on their own" –Mary couldn't exactly deny that— "which I guess might work, but the _point_ was that you're never going to get anywhere in the world if you don't learn to manage people and convince them give you what you want."

In point of fact, the only thing Mary could think of that she wanted out of life, off the top of her head, was to be allowed to study magic and not be used by total gits like Lockhart, so she wasn't really sure what Lilian was trying to get at with the whole 'getting somewhere in the world' bit. She didn't have anywhere she needed to be, as such. Her ambition, at least according to the Hat, was to 'prove herself,' not to become the Minister of Magic or something. "So what, then?"

" _So_ you should start paying attention to how people get what they want. And you should probably think about what you actually do want. I mean, _I have everything I need_? Honestly? How much more of a Hufflepuff can you _be_?"

"Lils?"

"Yeah?"

"I _want_ you to shut up."

Lilian snickered, but obliged, apparently having said what she thought needed to be said, and leaving Mary with a lot to think about. She never did find out how Lilian tricked Hermione into thinking it was her own idea that Mary was on Lilian's side in their argument.

Saturday, 12 September 1992 Hogwarts

Over the course of the following week, between dodging Colin Creevey's attempts to take her photo and 'professor' Lockhart's attempts to give her unwanted advice on dealing with her 'celebrity' status, Mary tried to put the incident out of her mind. She did fairly well setting aside the confusing conversation about wants – no matter how passive she might seem in her daily life, she certainly wasn't going to let anyone tell her what she did or didn't or ought to want, even Lilian.

The part of the incident she couldn't shake was that the other girl had inadvertently drawn her attention to something both fascinating and slightly disturbing: how positively _manipulative_ interactions within her house were. Slytherins were always negotiating and bargaining – as Morgana had said on the train, you get nothing for nothing – but after what Lilian had said about making Hermione think Mary was on Lilian's side, she started noticing how much she, who prided herself on her people-watching skills, had been missing. It was nearly as galling as when she realized how little she had managed to learn of proper pureblood etiquette over the course of her first year. At least Lilian hadn't outright insulted her like Madam Urquhart.

Mostly, she thought, it came down to the fact that she hadn't been considering how people decided how to act, but only what they did, and when, and of course, where they were, and whether they would likely be a threat to her. After a week of watching and trying to decide what was different now, she had concluded that, before, she had (rather naively) simply assumed that people acted as she did, because that was simply what one _did_ in a given situation. Certain behaviors were expected, and she had spent most of her life picking those out from the slew of interactions around her, which she was (before Hogwarts) so rarely allowed to participate in. She had thought, when she gave it any thought at all (which wasn't often), that people were mostly motivated by money, or the promise of safety or security, or maybe sometimes by power or fame, like politicians and Lockhart. She _hadn't_ thought that they might, in the end, be motivated by something so complex and so simple as _wanting_ to do one thing more than another, by preference, and not for any logical reason. She hadn't considered that some people only did things or wanted things because others had convinced them they ought to. And she most definitely hadn't seen that people all around her were trying – and succeeding – at changing peoples' priorities and motivations, right in front of her, all the time.

It was, in short, a revelation.

On Monday, she had watched Aradia Carmichael's second-in-command, Ananda Grey, flirt with Novum Aeolus, who always seemed to be hanging around the edges of Miss Carmichael's court, convincing him to promise to help her with her NEWT Arithmancy while actually promising nothing in return. When Destiny Michaels, who wanted to take Grey's place next to Carmichael, tried to make fun of her for flirting with the sycophant, Grey had suggested to Stephen Podmore, Michaels' boyfriend, that Michaels was jealous, which led the two of them into an argument, neatly distracting the Court from Grey's activities.

On Tuesday, she overheard Draco offering Matthew Bannan, a sixth-year, twenty galleons to have a chat with Terry Higgs about how difficult OWLs were. Then on Thursday, Higgs had announced that he would be leaving the Quidditch team to focus on his studies (which Mary was nearly as pleased about as Draco – she thought she stood just as good a chance as he did of taking Higgs' spot, and was now determined to try out).

On Friday, Sean Moon arranged for Marcus Young to proposition Carter Dunsidget, from Ravenclaw, in the Great Hall after lunch, so that Sean could chase Marcus off and get Carter's attention. Mary had no idea how Sean had gotten Marcus to cooperate, but apparently the plan worked, because Mary, Lilian and Hermione had come across Sean and Carter snogging in a corner of the library later that evening (to Sean's irritation and Lilian's amusement).

And, of course, she started to see how Lilian carefully poked and prodded Hermione into doing exactly what Lilian wanted, almost all the time. When Lilian was tired of doing homework, and Hermione wouldn't shut up about it, the Slytherin accused the Ravenclaw of caring more about what her teachers thought of her than her friends. Any time Hermione brought up 'Professor' Lockhart, Lilian picked a fight over something completely unrelated and distracted her. When Aerin suggested they join her to explore the grounds on Wednesday and see if anything had changed over the summer, Hermione would have stayed behind, except Lilian made a comment about how sitting around in the library all day studying didn't exactly keep you fit, did it? Hermione made fun of Lilian just as much, of course, for making eyes at Kevin Entwhistle when she thought no one was looking, or for the fact that she had apparently completely forgotten everything they'd learned for history class (though not _in_ the class) over the summer. But Hermione only seemed to say these things in retaliation, or maybe to show Lilian that she wouldn't take her barbs lying down. She never tried to use them to her advantage, at least as far as Mary could see.

Lilian's behavior, more than any of the others', was disturbing to Mary, if only because if Lilian was 'managing' Hermione like that, what was to say that she wasn't doing the same thing to Mary? But no matter how hard Mary scrutinized their interactions, she couldn't pinpoint any specific examples where Lilian had actually gotten her to do something she didn't want to do, or ever where it really seemed like she'd tried. They rarely disagreed on anything, either because Mary didn't particularly care about the little things, like which homework assignment to do first, or whether to play hangman or take turns animating little doodles in the library to tell a story, or because they shared the same opinions on big things like the fact that Lockhart was clearly a worthless chump (they had decided over the weekend that Hermione must be in love with the _character_ Lockhart, from his books, and was somehow confusing him with the man standing in the front of the classroom, but had yet to convince the Ravenclaw of this).

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Mary was so preoccupied with these considerations in the week leading up to the Quidditch try-outs that they seemed to have snuck up on her, despite Malfoy and Higgs drawing attention to them throughout the week. On Saturday morning, right after breakfast, she finally pushed all thoughts of manipulative friends aside, ready to concentrate on the trials.

Mary, Lilian, and Draco were the only second-years vying for the open Slytherin positons. Adrian Pucey had graduated, meaning there was at least one open chaser position, and, as Higgs had just announced his resignation, the seeker spot was fair game as well. Vinnie and Greg had said something about possibly trying out when the beaters graduated, while Theo and the girls simply gave the others a disdainful look for participating in _sport_. Blaise actually looked a bit embarrassed, admitting that he had no talent for Quidditch, which was surprising to Mary, because he had been a decent flier in class.

Mary was only really interested in playing seeker. She would be competing for it against Draco, Enyo Seran from fourth year, and Lindsay Turner from third. It was clear Draco felt he deserved the post simply because it was his maneuvering which had convinced Higgs to drop out of the running, but none of the three girls agreed with him.

Draco was also interested in the chaser position, as was Lilian. There was a bit more competition for that spot: Sextus Feldsmark and Sabine Kilberthal from third year; Adrian and Perry from fourth; Derrick Bole from fifth; and Marcus Young and Matthew Bannan from sixth had all turned out. Feldsmark and Bole had been reserve chasers the year before, but hadn't gotten to play in any of the matches. From the talk going around the common room, Bole was the favorite to take Pucey's spot. Larry Chesterfield would also have to defend his spot as a returning chaser, but it was generally considered unlikely that he would be beaten out by one of the second-years, and he had outflown all of the others the year before.

So far as Mary could tell, looking around the assembly on the North side of the pitch, no one was planning to challenge Bletchley as keeper or Montague and Warrington for their beaters' spots. All three of them had defended their positions the year before against all the current third-years and up who might want their posts, and none of the second-years were interested.

"All right, people! Eyes over here!" Flint called, hovering before the assembled candidates. The crowd turned, standing straighter and focusing on their captain. "Let's get started before the Gryffindors come down!"

"Why are the Gryffindors coming down?" Bannan asked. There was no petulance in his voice, only honest curiosity.

"Hooch always double-books try-outs," Chesterfield answered, rolling his eyes. He clearly had little respect for the older student, who either hadn't tried out, or hadn't made it the year before.

"Unfortunately Chess is right," Flint confirmed, shooting a glare at his youngest returning chaser. "We've been booked with the Gryffindors for the past four years, and every year they've picked a fight, so get your arses in the air before they get here! I have shit to do today, even if you don't!"

There were murmurs from the assembled upperclassmen, though the second-years kicked off without another word, hovering near head-height until they received further direction.

Flint raised a threatening eyebrow at the older candidates. Their flying skills wouldn't matter if they couldn't follow the captain's orders. They quickly joined the younger students. "First task, three laps of the pitch round the edge of the stands. Meet back here and split up into groups for each position. Go!" He flicked his wand, starting a timer.

The four prospective seekers were off the mark within a quarter second of each other, and the chasers weren't far behind. The pitch was a little larger than a standard track and field stadium – three laps over the first row of seats was roughly a mile. Draco and Mary were tied for first on the first lap, but Seran, who was on the latest Comet, was just slightly faster, and passed them from above as they rounded the third curve. Mary tucked her body even closer to the shaft of the broom, cutting down on wind resistance. She was the lightest of the four seeker potentials, and the smallest. Her broom might be slightly slower than Seran's, but she was a better jockey. She edged out Draco on the fourth curve and started to gain on Seran, but the older girl peeked back under her arm and saw Mary advancing. She flattened herself down as well, and increased her lead.

 _Damn_ , Mary thought, as they rounded the final curve. In a flat-out race, the Comet still beat the Nimbus, even with a lighter load on the latter. The Nimbus series was more maneuverable, so it would be better for actual matches, but the Comet was a better racing broom. She pulled up sharply, spinning to a halt and dropping down level with Seran, glaring at the older girl who had arrived a few seconds before. Flint jabbed his wand at her, and a glowing red figure came to hover before her in the air – her time. Draco arrived a second behind her, followed immediately by Turner, who was on the Nimbus 2000. Compared to hers and Draco's 2001 models, it was still a bit slower, but she was almost as small as Mary, and so had managed to gain ground on Draco.

Young was next to join them, and then in quick succession Feldsmark, Lilian, Kilberthal, Bole and Chesterfield. They formed a second group for chasers. Montague and Warrington were next, and formed a new group. The chasers were joined by Adrian and Perry, then the keeper, Bletchley, arrived, with Bannan bringing up the rear.

"Good times! And I'm glad to see that this year, everyone can fly a straight line!" The older students chuckled at this. Apparently last year's trials hadn't been taken quite so seriously. "So we've got seekers and chasers?" Flint looked at each group in turn, and they nodded accordingly. "Anyone want to be considered for both spots?" Only Draco raised his hand. "You'll go last among the chasers, then," the captain said. "Everyone else, when you do one-on-ones, you'll do your trials in reverse order you finished. Winners get to see the competition first. Anyone want to be considered for beater or keeper?" No one raised a hand. Bletchley, Montague, and Warrington floated over to join Flint. Apparently they would be helping to run the trials, since they had no competition for their own spots.

"Well, we need new reserves, anyway," Montague said, "now Rosier and Pierce are out to focus on NEWTs, so don't be surprised if you don't make the starting team and we ask you to stick around to see how you work with me and Warrington."

"And all you chaser options are going to take a turn in the goal hoops," Bletchley added. "Wouldn't be fair to have all ten of you take shots against me one after the next."

Flint nodded. "We'll take it in rounds. First up's chasers. Bole, Young, Bannan, take a ring. Malfoy, Moon, Feldsmark, Kilberthal, you're team one; Wilkes, Lestrange, and Chesterfield, team two. Montague beat for team one; Warrington for team two. Seekers, Seran take the left hoop, Turner center, Potter right. You're going to keep track of who scores through your hoop, and who gets blocked. I'll be watching for teamwork. Bletchley, count steals and interceptions. Got it?"

Everyone nodded.

"Form up, then, and I'll release the bludgers. Five minutes. Ready?" Mary went and hovered behind the right hoop, as Turner and Seran did the same. Bole, Bannan, and Young sorted themselves out, and Mary ended up watching Bannan. Flint kicked the box with the bludgers open and quickly dodged them, Warrington and Montague batting them away toward the other end of the pitch while Flint put the quaffle in play, then hovered above the game.

Feldsmark grabbed the red ball and passed to Lilian, who started streaking toward the goals. She passed backward over her head, hardly looking, to Malfoy, who put it past Bole. Chesterfield circled round the back and snagged it on the way down, swooping back up and making an attempt on Bannan's hoop, but his shot was blocked. Mary made a note of it.

The bludgers were back. Bannan chucked the quaffle as far from himself as he could, and Adrian intercepted it, passing to Perry, who dropped it to dodge a bludger. Kilberthal snatched it up, but immediately had to dodge the other bludger. Draco grabbed it, passed to Lilian, who was side-swiped by Chesterfield, who snagged it out of her hands. He went straight up the pitch, an easy target for Montague, who had managed to corner both bludgers, and sent them straight at the defending chaser. He rolled to avoid them, and Feldsmark stole the ball, passing it up the pitch to Draco, who was in position to score on Bannan. Mary made another note. Lilian picked up the through-ball, and did a trick-flip over the top of Young's hoop, passing through it to Kilberthal.

Perry checked Kilberthal to snag the ball, then barrel-rolled away to avoid the bludger sent at him, came wide around the left side of the hoops, and was blocked in his attempt by Bole. Unlike Bannan, Bole only deflected the quaffle, rather than catching it. Adrian caught the rebound, and Warrington sent a bludger straight at Young, who ducked it, and also the quaffle, which followed the bludger straight over his head.

"All right, TIME!" Flint called. "Pull it in!"

Warrington and Montague captured the bludgers, and the Slytherins formed a huddle.

"Seekers, report," the captain ordered. He was taking notes with a little pencil in an actual notebook.

Turner spoke first: "Young missed one by Moon and one by Lestrange."

"Bole missed one by Malfoy and blocked Wilkes," said Seran.

"Bannan missed one by Malfoy, too, but blocked Chesterfield," Mary finished.

"Fetch?"

"I've got Lestrange for one interception; Chesterfield, Feldsmark, and Wilkes for one steal each," Bletchley reported.

"Right, then," Flint said, making what looked like tallies in his notebook. "Chasers practice passing drills. Three to a squad with Bletchley, Warrington, and Montague supervising. Malfoy, you're with seekers."

Everyone but the four seeker candidates and the captain cleared off. "Okay, you lot, we're headed up to a hundred and fifty feet. Everyone know how to do the altitude check?"

" _Altitudem_ ," the seekers chorused. It was one of the few spells Madam Hooch actually taught.

Flint nodded. "Get going, then," he motioned upward, and the seekers took off, spiraling up. The captain followed more sedately.

"I have a handful of practice snitches," he explained, "which you will each make three attempts at catching." He pulled a ball out of his pocket to show them. It was the same size as a snitch, but silver instead of gold, and had no wings. "These will not dodge. The goal is for you to catch the ball as near to the ground as possible, without missing, letting the ball hit the ground, or crashing. The balls are enchanted to register the elevation at which they are caught. You'll be going in reverse order, so Turner, Malfoy, Potter, Seran. Any questions?"

"Does the ball get a head start?" Turner asked. She looked a bit concerned.

"One second this round, one and a half the next, two after that. I'll green-light you." Mary didn't know what that meant, but all the others nodded. "Ready?"

Turner nodded, and the others backed away. Flint tapped the first 'snitch,' with his wand, muttering something under his breath, and then threw it as hard as he could toward the center of the field. Turner was staring at the tip of his wand, now held in his left hand. One second after the ball was free, the wand-tip lit up green, and Turner was gone. The ball was clearly visible, glinting like a star, just beginning to arc down toward the pitch. A few seconds later the light turned white, and Flint cancelled the spell.

"Malfoy, you're up next!" Flint pulled a second ball from his pocket and tapped it, muttering. He threw, and Draco dived when the light went green. Mary couldn't be sure from up here, but she thought Draco had gotten closer to the ground than Turner. Then it was her turn.

The light went green, and Mary shot off toward the center of the field, headed slightly downward. It took only a split-second to spot the falling ball, and then she turned straight down, headed for the spot she _knew_ the ball was going to be. She was fifty feet from the ground – thirty – ten – it was there, just a bit more… Six inches! Two! And then there was a sudden flash of brilliant white light, and the snitch disappeared among the spots burned into her retinas. She pulled up abruptly, hoping not to crash into the ground or another player, blinking frantically.

"What the bloody fuck was that?" she yelled, rubbing at her eyes.

And then she heard it, a high-pitched voice from the stands: "I got it! I got it, guys! Mary Potter, catching the snitch! This is going to be brill!"

Colin Creevey was hanging out of the first row of the stands, camera in hand, with two other little boys who must have been his year mates. He had a stupid grin all over his stupid face, and was waving his camera around. "Hi, Mary!"

Mary thought she had been rather clear over the past two weeks, constantly telling the boy that she did not want her photo taken, and dodging him when he attempted to take it anyway. He seemed to regard it almost as a sort of game, trying to catch her off guard. The last time, she had sent a Stinging Hex in his direction, which he only narrowly dodged. This was the first time he had actually managed to get an unimpeded shot.

"Creevey, you little shit-head!" she screeched, coming level with the first-years. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, you little creep? I've told you every day for the last two weeks I'm not giving you a fucking photo, and you keep trying! Now you're bolloxing up my trial, _and_ you nearly killed me! I couldn't bloody well see a God-damned thing, two meters from the ground, topping seventy miles an hour! What the bloody fucking hell are you even doing here?!"

Creevey mumbled something, hanging his head.

"What was that, creep? I didn't quite catch it!"

"I said 'm sorry! I didn't mean to distract you. I'll just go." He turned to leave, his friends preceding him out of the stands, but Mary wasn't having it.

"Oh, no you don't! You've been following me around for bloody ages! The only reason you're leaving now is you finally got what you want! No fucking way! Give me that camera!"

"No! It's mine!"

Mary briefly wondered if she could just summon the damned thing and ruin the photo herself. He had the strap around his neck. Maybe she could strangle him with it while she was at it. "You can't just go around taking pictures of people!"

"Why not?! Everyone else lets me!"

" _I'm_ not fucking _everyone_ , and I'm not just something to gawk at like an animal in a bloody _zoo_! Now expose the goddamn picture and then I never want to see you again!"

A look of horror swept over the faces of the Gryffindor kiddies, and they ran for it.

"Get back here, you little shits!" Mary yelled, starting after them, only to be called back by Flint.

"Potter? What's going on down here?"

"That fucking Gryff first-year paparazzi wannabe bloody-well _blinded_ me two inches from the ball!"

"What were you yelling at him?" That was Draco, and he sounded amused.

"What, where were you?"

"Right here, Potter, but I don't speak Parseltongue," he said indolently. Suddenly his attitude made a lot more sense. It must be nice for him, hearing her get pissed off with _someone else_ in Parsel. On the other hand, she had been so angry she slipped into it by accident, and hadn't even realized it, which was rather embarrassing.

"What was the last thing you understood?"

"I believe it was that you're not something to gawk at," said Turner.

Mary flushed, hoping that they hadn't heard her say she wasn't some animal, only to immediately start speaking like an animal. "I told him to expose the picture, and I never wanted to see him again, and then when he ran, I told him to get his arse back here."

Flint sighed. "I take it you didn't catch the ball?"

"No." Mary crossed her arms, glaring after the Gryffindors. At least none of the chasers seemed to have noticed anything, and the seekers looked eager enough to change the subject. "I couldn't have been more than two meters from the ground, though. Everything went white, and I thought I was going to crash."

"You nearly did," Draco volunteered. "Pulled up about a foot from the ground."

"I'll let you make up the trial," Flint said, scowling. "Right now, we need to get back to the chasers…"

The chasers did another five-minute round of the strange scrimmaging activity. Wilkes, Lestrange, and Chesterfield were given the hoops, and the two previous teams were mixed up.

Then the seekers dove after their second round of snitches. Mary was pleased to find that she got closer to the ground than anyone else – a bare 2.1 meters – while Seran missed her ball entirely, and Turner, for the second time in a row caught hers as soon as she could, far above the pitch. Flint dismissed both of them from the seeker trials, but told them to mix in with the chasers for the final five-minute scrimmage, putting Lilian, Feldsmark, and Kilberthal in the hoops and re-sorting the rest of them into three teams of three.

Draco (who was definitely not interested in keeping) and Mary were told to split the third hoop between them so far as keeping track of the goals went. None of the three keepers were very good, and with nine others attempting to score on them, there were more goals made in the third scrimmage round than there were in both the others put together. There was also more confusion about who was supposed to be on whose team. Chesterfield accidentally passed to one of his opponents on two different occasions, as did Bannan, once.

Seran was surprisingly good, finding all kinds of holes in her opponents' defenses, and leading the bludgers into them, just as if she was seeking. She was not, however, nearly as strong as any of the other players, and had to resort to trick shots to make all three of her goals, clinging to her broom with her legs and spinning to whip her entire body around like a shot-putter, or pulling a mid-air somersault, approximating a football throw-in. Mary was incredibly impressed that she could aim something like that, and had to wonder if it would work in an actual match with a decent keeper. Either way, it looked awesome.

The third round of seeker-dives came and went. Draco did manage to get under two meters, but after two trials, Mary had a pretty good idea of how fast the 'snitch' would fall. Instead of diving as soon as the light went green, she waited until the last possible instant to chase it down, kicking back hard from her dive to make the catch just two and a half feet from the ground. Draco was stunned, and Flint said that if she could spot anywhere near that well, she was in – she didn't even have to re-do her first attempt.

After that, they took a short break, Flint conferring with Bletchley, Montague, and Warrington while the rest of them sat around, watching the Gryffindors, who had arrived sometime during the second scrimmage and were flying some sort of drill. None of the Slytherins had heard anything about them losing a player, so they assumed they were just seeing if anyone was worth training as a reserve.

After several minutes of growing suspense (for everyone but Mary, who wasn't interested in the chaser post, and Seran and Turner, who already knew they weren't going to make seeker), Flint decreed that Chesterfield, Bole, Malfoy, Lilian, and Seran would stay for additional chaser trials, Mary and Malfoy would stay for additional seeker trials, and that Montague and Warrington wanted Feldsmark and Bannan to stick around to see if they were any good at beating. Turner, Kilberthal, Young, Perry, and Adrian were free to go. They trooped off with only minor grumbling to sit in the stands and watch the rest of them duke it out.

Pool reduced, Flint activated a ward that divided the pitch in half. "We're going to have a round of half-field," he explained to the questioning looks of the younger students, "and I'd rather the snitch didn't bugger off down to Wood's end. Bletchley will keep for both teams. We'll do Bole, Moon, Montague, Feldsmark, and Potter on one team and Chesterfield, Seran, Warrington, Bannan, and Malfoy on the other. I'll ref and keep score. Snitch gets a thirty-second head-start."

He let the tiny golden ball go free, and Lilian murmured, "Talkative, our Mr. Flint," before she kicked off.

Mary grinned, rising above the other players, opposite Malfoy. Flint was all business, but then, she thought she preferred that to chatty, and he had been nice enough about the Creevey thing. Lilian was just snippy, Mary suspected, because she didn't know if she was going to be on the team or not.

Mary quickly found that it was boring to just fly around the upper levels of the pitch, looking for the fluttering snitch, as Thorpe, the previous year's Gryffindor seeker, and Price from Ravenclaw were wont to do. Higgs and Milford, last year's Hufflepuff seeker, had both been more active, leading the bludgers around the field and interfering with the other team's plays. Higgs' skill at that aspect of the game had very much impressed Mary at her very first Quidditch match. Thus, after perhaps fifteen minutes of aimlessly floating around and staring at the ground and the sky, when she noticed that Seran was lining up a pass to Chesterfield which would put him in a good position to score, she decided to try her hand at running interference.

She pretended to see the snitch near the ground and dived right in front of Chesterfield, just as he moved to intercept the pass. He swerved to avoid her, and Lilian swooped in to nab the quaffle, passing it quickly to Bole, who managed to score.

Mary recovered from her dive as soon as she realized that her gambit had been successful, only to see Malfoy pelting toward the ground on the other side of the field. He was closer to the point he was aiming toward, but Mary was lower. She tore off to intercept – helping the chasers wouldn't do any good if he managed to catch the snitch while she was distracted herself.

Mary was scanning Malfoy's path frantically, but didn't see the snitch anywhere. He was lower than her, now, and she turned, following him straight down. They were only ten meters from the ground – six – two – and Malfoy pulled up hard, swooping away and cackling madly. It was just a feint! Mary pulled up as well, her toes brushing the grass as she very nearly crashed into the ground.

Malfoy was hovering several meters away, waiting to see if his Wronski Feint was successful. "Nice try, Malfoy!" she called at him as she re-directed herself back into the sky. Neither of them had managed to pull off a Wronski Feint against the other yet, and they had been trying since their third or fourth flying class. By the end of their first year, they hardly ever managed to get the other to follow anymore, so they probably never would. Mary would have known better had she seen him start his dive, but she had been distracted by her own activities.

After that, the half-field match devolved into a chaotic mess, with both seekers freely diving through the chasers' plays, and luring the beaters into sending their bludgers dangerously close to their own teammates. The chasers were at a disadvantage with only two of them for each team, but so was the keeper, since he was actively defending against both teams without the sort of substantial break he would get in a real match, while everyone was down at the other end of the pitch, harrying his counterpart. The beaters seemed to be having a good time, keeping the bludgers in close to the scrum. For Mary and Malfoy, the game became a veritable roller-coaster ride of dips and dives, quick turns and corkscrew avoidance maneuvers, dodging and weaving between the other players and, of course, the ever-present bludgers, all the while keeping an eye out for any glint of gold.

Mary saw the snitch once, but Draco was closer to it, and would surely have caught it if he had seen it, so she did not draw attention to it. Malfoy spotted it next, and Mary started racing him for it, but Feldsmark sent a bludger at them, and then Chesterfield, Seran, and Lilian drifted into their path. Both seekers swerved, and the snitch disappeared again. The tiny ball made at least three more appearances, but each time, a distraction intervened, and it escaped before either of the seekers could approach.

Finally, two and a half hours after the beginning of the match, Mary caught the snitch. It was a close thing – Draco spotted it first that time, but he was slightly further away, and in drawing attention to it gave away his advantage, much as Mary had feared to do the first time _she_ spotted it. She was ever-so-slightly faster, as they had learned in their initial, warm-up race, and managed to snag it from the air less than a foot ahead of the competition. Flint halted the match, bringing the sweaty, exhausted team to the ground for a ten-minute break.

The potentials who were still watching the match (and several other Slytherins who had shown up just to see the half-field game, which Mary quickly gathered from the spectators' comments was a yearly event), congratulated the winning team, laying bets on who would be the starting chasers, given their performance. Smart money seemed to be on Bole and Chesterfield. Seran was clearly a better flier than either of the boys, but she pulled too many trick shots and didn't work well with the others. Lilian looked to be getting tired by the end.

Flint seemed pleased with both Mary's and Malfoy's performances, especially the way they had run interference, and made calculated decisions to chase or not to chase the snitch when it appeared. It was hard for the spectators, who hadn't seen the initial race or the diving trials, to say which of them he would choose for seeker.

At the end of the short break, the captain ordered all the chaser potentials into the air again to complete some complex rotation of passing, shooting, and goal-defense while he evaluated their performance. The beaters and Mary were invited to stay to hear his decisions after the final trial was completed, but the beaters (along with the spectators) made their way back to the castle when the chasers kicked off. Warrington and Montague informed the two potentials that they would be kept on as reserve beaters, but that there was no way they had managed to outperform the seasoned duo, and everyone else had better things to do than watch tired chasers force themselves through a difficult-to-perform but boring-to-watch exercise.

Mary stayed, mostly to support Lilian, but partly out of curiosity as to whether Draco would make chaser. She was fairly certain that between her superior performances in diving and racing, and actually catching the snitch, she had edged him out for seeker. She sat alone at the edge of the Slytherin and Ravenclaw sections, her usual seating area, and one of the best spots to see the nearer goal-hoops.

Lilian had made two goals against the other chaser potentials and one against Bletchley (though Mary didn't know how much each was worth relative to the others, because Bletchley was clearly a superior keeper compared to Seran and Malfoy), and was moving into one of the passing positions in the drill formation when an irate-looking Ron Weasley, a resigned Neville Longbottom, and a cowering little paparazzi twerp stormed up to her.

Weasley was in the lead, with Longbottom at his side, and Creevey more or less hiding behind them.

"Guys, I don't," he whined, but Neville cut him off.

"Just let him, Colin. There's no arguing with him when he's like this."

Weasley just glowered at Mary, wand out, face nearly as red as his hair. She looked quickly from one to the other of the three boys, and decided that out of all of them, the Little Weasel was the only real threat. She quickly directed her own wand at him, completing the first two movements of the Trigger-Drop Disarming Jinx. It was an adaptation of the Simple Disarming Charm ( _expelliarmus_ ) which was less powerful, but much faster. Most of the wand motions could be completed up to several minutes ahead of time, hidden between other spells, so that one's opponent would not be able to see it coming. Catherine said it was used in defense and on the battlefield, but also in potentially hostile negotiations, because almost all wanded spells were slower, regardless of how short their incantations were.

"Can I help you?" she asked warily.

And the redhead exploded. "Who the bloody hell do you think you are, swanning in here and scaring the piss out of Creevey for nothing more than taking your bloody photo! Being the bloody Girl Who Lived doesn't give you the right –"

"I think you're misunderstanding –" Mary tried to diffuse the situation, but Weasley was having none of it.

"We bloody well are not _misunderstanding_!" he said, as though 'misunderstanding' was some sort of inherently poncy word. "You, slimy, snakey git, scared off three of our firsties, and then tried to chase them down when they ran! It's not _right_! You should be ashame–"

"He nearly killed me!"

"I don't believe _that_ for a second! All you snakes are lying, scheming bastards!" And apparently no longer even attempting to pretend that he was there for any other purpose than to curse first, and ask questions never, the Weasley boy began a complex wand movement and an incantation that could mean nothing good for whoever was on the other end of it.

Mary, with her half-completed charm, was faster. " _Cadarma!_ " Weasley's hand opened involuntarily, and his wand dropped between the bleacher-seats to the ground below. Mary made a mental note to thank Catherine for all her tips on things she probably wouldn't learn in defense class, but ought to.

Unfortunately, the Trigger-Drop Jinx only worked once. While Mary was busy congratulating herself on her quick thinking and neat spellwork, Weasley snatched Longbottom's wand out of his hand (ignoring Longbottom's frantic cry of, "Ron! No!") and began what Mary recognized as a minor, but extremely unpleasant curse sometimes thrown at students who thought the Slytherin Common Room was a space for pontificating on how they were fourth-years now and obviously knew the answers to everything. (Adrian had taken one from Ananda Grey the first week back, and had been forced to clean up the mess by their seventh-year prefect, Mr. Rosier, who obviously felt that, whatever Adrian had said, Ananda was in the right.) It caused the victim to vomit up slugs for hours.

Weasley completed it before Mary could remember the appropriate shield charm or disarm him again. Her only real option was to drop straight down between the seats, and hope that it missed.

At first she thought that she had moved quickly enough, and by some minor miracle had managed to dodge. Then she heard a retching sound, and only just managed to scuttle backwards quickly enough to avoid the torrent of slugs pouring from Weasley's mouth. The spell had somehow… backfired? Mary hadn't even known that was possible.

"I told you I broke it in Lockhart's class – I still haven't got a new one!" Longbottom was saying. Weasley looked like he couldn't decide whether he was more furious at Mary for not getting cursed, or his friend, for apparently carrying around a broken wand. Creevey was hovering around uselessly, clearly trying to decide if he ought to take a photo of his defender puking his guts out. Weasley heaved again.

Apparently the answer to Creevey's internal dilemma was, 'yes,' because there was a loud click and another blinding flash from his Powers-bedamned camera. Weasley tried to say something to him, but it was interrupted by projected slugs, expelling themselves from his stomach. The younger boy ran off again.

Mary couldn't resist pointing out the younger Gryffindor's rudeness, even in the face of the Little Weasel's distress. "See? He's a menace!"

Weasley glared impotently, and Longbottom tugged on his arm. "Come on, we should get you to the hospital wing." The hothead turned and stalked away, trailing his meeker friend behind him, though that might have been more due to the sudden arrival of the Slytherin chasers than to Longbottom's sensible suggestion that he go visit Madam Pomfrey.

"Alright, Mary?" Lilian asked, hovering closer, clearly concerned.

"Yeah, no problem. He didn't even manage to get slugs on me."

"Right, then, come on," Flint ordered the crowd, "relocate away from this mess."

They moved to the end of the pitch directly behind the goals, all the chaser potentials sitting attentively while Flint hovered in front of them. He made a bit of a speech about the game and the importance of playing their best to represent Slytherin, and then made the announcement they had all been waiting for:

"Bletchley, obviously you're staying on as keeper. Chesterfield, I'm re-positioning you as reserve keeper. Bole, Malfoy, and myself will be the starting chasers."

Malfoy was clearly pleased with himself for making the starting string as a second-year, but Chesterfield was not. "But I played chaser last year!" he whined.

"And Malfoy outflew you. Deal with it. Now–"

"That's not fair, Flint! He wasn't playing all morning, he was just seeking! Of course he outflew me!"

"One more interruption, Chesterfield, and we'll be making due without a reserve keeper!" Flint barked. "Malfoy out-flew you in the scrimmages, as well as in the long match. In fact, Seran out-maneuvered you in the long match, as well, but her style doesn't mesh as well with the rest of the team as Malfoy's does." Chesterfield still looked irate, but he kept his mouth shut. "Seran, Moon, you'll be reserve chasers. If either of you manages to build up the upper body strength you need to play a more straightforward style and keep your endurance up, you'll have a good chance of starting next year."

Lilian pulled a face, but made a salute in the captain's direction, and Seran said, "Yes, sir." Mary would have bet she was surprised to even make the reserves, seeing that she had started as a seeker candidate.

"Montague and Warrington will stay on as the regular beaters. Feldsmark and Bannan will be our reserve beaters. I take it Monty and Warbler already told them?" The question seemed to be directed at Mary, so she nodded, somewhat taken aback by the nicknames. "Right. Potter's our seeker, obviously, with Malfoy as reserve seeker. Practices will be announced after Snape and McGonagall finish negotiating with Hooch over times – McG's a harpy when it comes to Quidditch: Snape just tries to keep up with her favoritism. Flitwick and Sprout don't care much for the sport, which is good, because if it was all of them in her office right now, Hooch would probably have a heart attack. Any questions on assignments?"

There was a murmur of negative responses.

"Right, keep an eye on the notice board then. Dismissed!"

The Slytherins meandered up to the castle just in time to watch an argument between the universally-hated caretaker, the Gryffindor ghost, and a still-spewing Weasley on their way to lunch. Lilian said that the sight of Professor McGonagall's slightly-queasy face as she ran down the Marble Stair (after Longbottom) to deal with the upset was more than enough to make up for the fact that the Weasley in question had reached his current slug-filled predicament in the course of attempting to curse Mary, and Mary had to agree. Apparently her guardian did not like slugs.

Overall, it was a very good morning.


	7. (Mostly) Harmless Rituals

**Chapter 6: (Mostly) Harmless Rituals**

[In which Mary discovers even more things that purebloods take for granted.]

Saturday, 19 September 1992 – Hermione's 13th Birthday Hogwarts

The first week after their acceptance onto the Quidditch team passed very quickly for Mary and Lilian, because Mary was already anticipating the next major event of the year.

Mary fairly well bounced out of bed and all the way to the Great Hall on the morning of the nineteenth of September. She was extremely pleased with herself because she had, in fact, remembered Hermione's birthday this time around, and had followed through on her plan to have real chocolates (with real sugar) owl-delivered to her friend from Honeyduke's.

She had been looking forward to seeing Hermione's face when they were delivered over breakfast. Unfortunately, the Slytherin Quidditch team had practice from six in the morning until noon on Saturdays, so Mary, Lilian, and the rest of the team arrived in the Great Hall approximately three hours before any of the Ravenclaws.

This revelation had not entirely killed Mary's excitement for the day, because as soon as she had realized that Quidditch would keep both herself and Lilian away from Hermione at least until lunch, she had called on the house elves to arrange a surprise for the evening as well.

Cammy had been very pleased to see Mary back in the castle, but the elves had also been very busy, with all the students coming back and the especially large incoming class of first-years. Mary had arranged to have a cake made and delivered to one of the under-used third-floor classrooms after dinner on Saturday before the little elf shuffled her out of their domain with a rather rushed promise to track Mary down and have a longer chat once everything had settled a bit throughout the Castle.

Lilian had been nearly as excited as Mary when Mary had told her about Hermione's birthday, because it was not just any birthday, but her thirteenth. Her first words on hearing were: "Oooh, we get to do the birthday ritual!"

On seeing Mary's look of complete confusion, the other girl explained that thirteen was one of the most important birthdays for any witch or wizard – even in progressive families, it was the age by which a child was meant to have been introduced to magic.

Mary was even more confused by this explanation. Hadn't they already been introduced to magic? They were, after all, beginning their second year at a magical school.

Apparently not. Lilian had run off at that point to fetch Aerin, who had a free period at the same time as the Slytherins, and more importantly had celebrated her thirteenth birthday over the summer, and could therefore answer Mary's questions more clearly.

"We've all been _using_ magic," the older girl explained, "but unless you've been participating in the major Sabbat rituals, you haven't really been introduced to the powers, and even then, magic is… polarized, kind of, into light and dark. A magical child is traditionally brought before wild magic on her third, seventh, and thirteenth birthdays, first so that magic can meet the child, then so the child can meet the magic, and finally so magic and child bond together."

"What happens if you don't do it?" Mary asked. She, like Hermione, had obviously missed the first two rituals.

Aerin shrugged. "Nothing. It's kind of like how muggles baptize their kids, and then have confirmation. It can give you a better understanding of your magic, and it feels wild, but it's not going to hurt you that you didn't do it."

"But you both think we should for Hermione?"

"Definitely!" the Moons chorused, then giggled at their timing. Mary grinned. She hadn't realized how much she missed Aerin.

"She'll _love_ it," the Ravenclaw added. It was true – Hermione was by far the most interested in traditional magic out of the three second-years.

"So what do we have to do then?" Mary asked, and the remainder of the hour was lost to planning.

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The Slytherins returned from practice dripping and cold, but pleased with themselves. According to the older players, they were shaping up to be a good team, and they had done their drills well enough that Flint had let them go half an hour early. Mary and Lilian put this time to good use, changing into warm, dry clothes before running to the Great Hall to find the birthday girl.

They took seats on either side of her at the Ravenclaw table, and Mary was immediately pulled into a hug. "Thank you for the chocolates!" Hermione exclaimed, before turning to Lilian to do the same thing, thanking her for the wizarding fiction books the older Slytherin had ordered for her.

"What do you want to do this afternoon?" Lilian asked with a grin. She and Mary had decided that Hermione could decide what they were doing until dinner, but then they and Aerin would take her to the spare classroom where Mary had arranged for the cake to be delivered and perform the birthday ritual.

As expected, Hermione simply rolled her eyes. "The same thing we do every spare afternoon?"

"Explore the castle?" Mary suggested.

"Homework?" asked Lilian.

"No, no, go sit in the back of the library and chat while we _pretend_ to do homework!" Mary responded.

"Shut up, you!" Hermione shoved Mary, but not hard enough to hit the Ravenclaw on her other side. "But yes," she admitted, "that." And they collapsed into giggles.

The afternoon went more quickly than Mary thought possible. Since they no longer saw each other every evening, they seemed to have more to talk about, and Lilian amused them for at least half an hour with a series of animated doodles she had been working on in various classes all week. Hermione looked like she wanted to scold the younger girl for goofing off, but she refrained so as not to ruin the mood.

After dinner, the quartet adjourned to the spare classroom. Hermione acted as though the cake alone was the best birthday present she had ever received. She and Mary explained to the Moons about muggle birthday traditions, and liberated a handful of taper candles from a chandelier in the Entry Hall to shrink and use as birthday candles. The Moons, predictably, thought this adventure was a bit silly, but Lilian was all for anything that involved breaking rules and setting things on fire, and Aerin was nearly as curious about muggle traditions as Hermione was about wizarding ones.

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After cake, slightly high on sugar, the four girls performed the ritual. Aerin explained briefly to Hermione exactly what they were doing and why, and then silenced her when it looked as though the birthday girl would keep them all until curfew asking about the ritual rather than doing it. Mary and Lilian were highly amused. Even Hermione thought it was funny, though she pretended to pout while they chalked a simple triangular diagram on the floor and made her sit in the middle of it.

Aerin had explained that as long as the number of people in the circle was magically significant, they could have as many or as few people as they wanted. Her circle had had seven – her parents, her siblings, her godparents, and her godbrother, who had already graduated from Hogwarts. Lilian's would probably have five, because her godfather had died in the war, and her godmother was a spinster. There were different diagrams for each circle, but they were all very simple.

They placed candles at each point of the triangle, and each of the other girls knelt at one of its sides. The three of them held hands across its corners, making a tiny circle around Hermione, with the candles on the outside.

The invocation was equally simple. Aerin led it, as the eldest of them.

"We call on magic, not dark nor light, but magic unbound by mortal notions. We call on magic, free and pure, strong and wild, without purpose or will. We call on magic to join us in our circle."

"Join us in our circle," Mary and Lilian echoed. Hermione, as instructed, stayed silent.

The candles flared, and the chalk lines of the "circle" began to glow.

"We welcome the magic, unformed and untamed. We welcome the magic, curious and open. We welcome the magic to our circle."

"Welcome to our circle."

The space inside the circle began to fill with light. Hermione's hair started to float upward. She grinned, looking around herself in delight.

"We call the magic to meet this child, child of magic, child of wonder. We bring this child to meet the magic, magic eternal, magic of the world. We offer to child and magic a chance, to be as one, to know and recognize."

"We witness for child and magic."

The light began to sink into Hermione's skin, and she gasped, watching her own hands begin to glow. The next lines were hers, and Aerin said that they were always different, drawn from the child by the ritual and the magic.

"I welcome the magic into myself, my own magic welcomes the world!" she declared, her face positively radiant.

"We witness for child and magic," the circle chanted.

"Know and be known," Hermione said, addressing the magic, "one and another, the same and distinct."

"We witness for child and magic," the circle repeated a third time.

The light began to ebb from Hermione's face, returning to the air around her. She was still beaming, though, so Mary assumed that was supposed to happen.

Aerin spoke again: "We thank the magic for answering our call. We thank the magic for recognizing our child. Our circle thanks the magic."

"Our circle thanks the magic." Hermione echoed this along with Mary and Lilian. The glow of magic left the circle entirely, though the candles stayed lit. Hermione and Aerin would take them back to Ravenclaw tower and let them burn out on their own.

Hermione, as they cleaned up, was uncharacteristically silent. Before they parted ways, however, she gave each of them a hug, whispering her thanks in their ears.

Tuesday, 22 September 1992 – Mabon Hogwarts

On Sunday morning, the Slytherins were reminded that their Mabon celebration would be held on Tuesday at high noon, in the Largest Courtyard, which was actually situated on top of the Great Hall, and could only be reached from the fourth floor. Most of their professors would turn a blind eye if they arrived late, but, the prefects said with secretive smiles, that shouldn't be a problem.

Mary and Lilian ran off to inform Hermione and Aerin at once, blatantly disregarding the convention that only third-years and up were allowed to invite students from other houses. The Ravenclaws, fortunately, were already aware of the event. The Deceptive Power, which was celebrated at Mabon, was also the Wise Power. There weren't as many traditionalist Ravenclaws as Slytherins, but if the Ravenclaws hadn't had a standing invitation to the Slytherin celebration, they would have had to hold their own.

Hermione seemed to be fully recovered from the previous night's celebration – back to her usual outgoing and talkative self. She thanked her friends again for performing the ritual for her. It was transcendent, she said, and they both must, without a doubt, do it on their own birthdays as well. Mary and Lilian, who had never had any plans to the contrary, readily agreed.

The following three days passed quickly. There was only one incident of note: on Monday, the Weasley twins caused Professor Dumbledore's robes to trail glitter wherever he went, like some kind of enormous, fabulous slug. The Headmaster was highly amused and refused to end the spell, or to allow any of the other professors to do so. By lunchtime, Professor McGonagall had assigned a house elf to follow him around, periodically vanishing the glitter he left in his wake.

On Tuesday at noon, Mary, Lilian, and Hermione, along with what looked like two-hundred other students and staff, assembled in the "courtyard" atop the great hall. The Young brothers, who were apparently in charge of the day's ritual, along with the Slytherin and Ravenclaw prefects, directed everyone to certain positions around the courtyard, creating what Hermione called a nautilus spiral, instead of a simple circle. Mary supposed this made sense. If they had made a normal circle, they would hardly be able to see across it.

Mary was between Lilian and Hermione, near all the other Slytherin second-years. Kevin Entwhistle, Padma Patil, and Morag MacDougal of Ravenclaw were also present, and from where she was standing, Mary could see at least twenty tiny children, some of whom she thought _had_ to be Ravenclaws, because she didn't recognize them at all. One of them had Weasley-red hair, which was odd, because Mary could have sworn Ginny Weasley was a Gryffindor, and the twins knew better than to invite their little siblings. The twins in question didn't seem to have noticed their sister. Mary could see them on the other side of the spiral, laughing with Morgana and her friends, probably about the Dumbledore prank.

Finally, everyone was in place. A hush fell over the crowd as Marcus Young, who had taken a point at the center of the spiral, began to speak.

"Welcome," he said, his amplified voice seemingly flattened by the clouds above. "We gather here on the day of Turning Darkward to honor the Deceptive Power, the Wise Power. We, the children of Slytherin and Ravenclaw, call the Power to move among us, as the darkness supersedes the light.

"We gather beneath the open sky, at the hour of balance, poised, timeless, at the precipice of a turning-point of the year, to witness the shift as light wanes and dark waxes full. We witness the majesty of this day's Power, in all its aspects: Experience, Wisdom, and Deception, for it is a great and terrible Power, but it moves above all other Powers to draw us ever nearer to _what is_.

"In this moment of transition, we offer ourselves to the will of the Power, sacrificing secrets for wisdom. We call upon the Power to take from us what we would not tell, and tell us what we need to know!"

There was an uncomfortable shuffling from some people in the crowd, who seemed to want to leave, rather than tell their secrets to the crowd, but none could move – the ritual had already begun. Mary knew, because she was one of the ones who tried.

 _Bugger_ , she thought, as a bright blue light approached her, leaping from one head to the next, outward through the spiral, trailing a cord of flame behind it, connecting them all to one another. It linked Lilian to her, and then her to Hermione, and she felt what she could only describe as a cool sense of comfort wash through her mind, soothing her nervousness. It was as though the magic said, _Don't worry, I won't hurt you_. And even though it was the Deceptive Power, she believed it.

And then it began – a litany of deepest, darkest secrets, each held most closely to the heart of one person, buried deeply under years of fear or resentment. Each was spoken in the voice of the magic – not clearly male or female, young or old, as it moved through the circle.

"I don't know what I want out of life," it said, and from the circle, as though compelled, a dozen voices rose, saying, "You are not alone." Tiny filaments of light shot out, connecting those who shared a secret.

Mary felt her eyes grow wide as the words forced themselves past her lips. She was not forced to join the refrain every time, but always someone did.

"I am jealous of my siblings."

"You are not alone."

"I am a homosexual, and my family doesn't know."

"You are not alone."

Some of the secrets were funny, or things that she didn't think were really secrets for most people.

"I hate my name."

"I don't hate my family as much as I pretend I do."

Far more hinted at sad and terrifying stories.

"I believed them when they said I was mad."

"I don't think I belong here."

"If I had to do everything again, I would make the same choices."

"Life would be easier for everyone if I just disappeared."

"I was raped by someone I trusted."

Some were scary.

"I hate people for no good reason."

"I like to hurt people."

"I have killed before, and would kill again if it were necessary."

Mary couldn't help but shiver as she realized even those people were not alone.

The magic worked its way outward from the center, one person at a time, just as it had done at the beginning of the ritual, connecting them all to one another. By the time it reached Mary, there were dozens of threads of light connecting her to people she couldn't even see – a single point in an enormous, glittering web.

"I have begun to question that which I have been taught." That was Draco's secret, on the other side of Lilian. Mary was surprised. He didn't seem the sort of person to question his father, or the kind of person who had many secrets.

"I think I care too much," the magic said, whirling around Lilian. Her eyes filled with tears and dozens of lines of light struck out as half of Slytherin House responded, "You are not alone."

"I think I might be forced into a role by those more powerful than myself," the magic drew forth from Mary, translating, she understood, her hatred of being the Girl Who Lived into a fear that others could relate to, "Even though I don't want it."

"You are not alone." It was good to hear, and she was sad to see that most of those who had responded were Death Eaters' children.

Her awareness of which strands tied her to those who shared her secret was lost as soon as the magic moved on. "I consider people who are less intelligent than myself to be inferior," was Hermione's secret, echoed, apparently, by most of the Ravenclaws, and about half of the Slytherins as well. The girl blushed furiously when the magic moved on.

Mary lost track of whom the magic was speaking for. More and more ties were drawn between herself and the others in the courtyard, until she felt as though she was dissolving under their pressure, a thousand tiny threads, pulling her apart.

"I hate lying, but I do it anyway."

"I don't trust anyone but myself."

"I don't know if I know what love is."

"I want to do something great, but I don't know what, or how."

"I am afraid that if I tell people my fears, they will use them against me."

"I hate when people look at me, because they never see me."

On and on it went until, finally, with one last "You are not alone," silence fell. The tension in the threads of light grew. Mary looked around, shyly catching the eyes of the people she was connected to, then quickly looking away, wondering what secret she shared with them. There was a certain anonymity in numbers.

The voice of the magic echoed throughout the circle, coming from everywhere and nowhere. "Remember your secret. Remember you are not alone. All else forget – their secrets are not yours to hold."

And with that, the light exploded, or imploded, maybe, the web tearing mind, body, and magic apart, or so it felt. If Mary had thought she was dissolving before, it was nothing compared to the feeling as the connections the ritual had drawn were broken, or, perhaps, as the connections remained, and she broke to follow them and join all the others to whom she was tied. It was painful, just as painful as sharing her most closely guarded secret, and as joyful and right as she had felt when she heard voices rising up to support her.

When Mary came back to herself, she was swaying unsteadily on her feet, and the magic was gone, along with her memory of the others' secrets. She was incredibly relieved that her own secret hadn't been shared, or any of the lesser secrets she had revealed by responding to others', and had no idea why she felt like she wanted to cry. Her chest itched, between her collarbones and her still non-existent breasts, and again, she had no idea why.

Marcus Young's voice cut across the crowd, who were, by now murmuring quietly, to themselves or their neighbors. "We offer our thanks," he said, "to the Power, and take from our gathering the knowledge it has offered to us, of ourselves and our fellows." A breeze rustled through the courtyard. "Remember your secrets, and remember you are not alone. Let the Mark remind you, for a year and a day, as you grow in age, in wisdom, and experience, and find new secrets to hold dear. Blessings of the dark!"

And with that, the rain, which had been threatening all morning, began to fall. The celebrants rushed for the doors, casting water repelling charms as they went, and drying charms as they flooded down the stairs and into the Great Hall.

It was only slightly past twelve, though Mary could have sworn the ceremony took hours. She decided it was probably best not to think too hard about that. Going to classes that afternoon might, she thought, have been the most difficult thing she had ever done at Hogwarts.

When she returned to her rooms that night and shed her robes, she found a tattoo, or a scar, or perhaps both, engraved on the skin of her chest – a nautilus spiral, pale and smooth, marked at thirteen points with tiny, ink-black dots. She ran her fingers over it and smiled as the words of the ritual echoed in her mind:

 _"I think I might be forced into a role by those more powerful than myself, even though I don't want it."_

 _"_ _You are not alone."_


	8. The Chamber of Secrets is Open Again

**Chapter 7: Zero for Three (or The Chamber of Secrets is Open Again)**

[In which a great many connections are made very quickly, and Hermione comes up with an idea that will _never_ work.]

Saturday, 31 October 1992 Hogwarts

The addition of Quidditch to Mary's schedule meant that she was quite genuinely _busy_ for the first time since coming to Hogwarts. All through the first year, she had had time to sit around, chatting with her friends or looking up new and interesting books, or even joining pick-up games of quodpot or quiddell. Now, however, she, along with the rest of the Quidditch team, was out on the pitch on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday after dinner until curfew, and from six to noon on Saturday. Bletchley told the new team members that Flint would reduce practice hours after their first match, but in the meanwhile it was somewhat overwhelming. Mary supposed she shouldn't complain, because the upperclassmen on the team put in even more time than that, writing plays and strategies for different combinations of players in the common room in the evenings, but she missed Hermione.

She still saw plenty of Lilian, even if they didn't have much chance to talk while they were in the air, but the hours that the other girls could spend with Hermione were suddenly very limited, and Mary also had to finish her homework while they were together. The only time they could really talk or explore anymore was Sunday, and Mary quickly realized that exercising an extra fifteen hours a week left her wanting nothing more than to sit around and relax by Sunday afternoon.

On the plus side, spending all her spare time flying and learning Quidditch strategies meant she had very little time or energy to spend worrying about whether Lilian (or any other Slytherin) was trying to manipulate her, and being on the team meant that many of the older Slytherins who would never have bothered to speak to her before now acknowledged her in the corridors and common room. Depending on how well they did in the first match, she might actually gain some degree of popularity among the upper years. Malfoy would, too, of course, but that couldn't be helped.

It took two weeks for Mary to wonder what Hermione was up to, now, in all the hours she would before have spent with Mary and Lilian. The answer, of course, was that she was spending considerably more time with the other Ravenclaws. She had become closer friends with her room-mate, Padma Patil, and Padma's best friend, Morag MacDougal, as well as joining Aerin and her friends Lara, Thomas, and Kirke in the Ravenclaw common room or the library.

It was somewhat of a relief to know that Hermione wasn't just pining away for Mary and Lilian in some dark corner of the library, but Mary was briefly (before she was whisked away for yet another practice session) unpleasantly surprised to realize that Hermione had a life of her own, to which Mary wasn't privy. In all honesty, before that day, Mary had no idea who Hermione's room-mate was. She had entirely forgotten that Ravenclaws even had room-mates, though she was sure she had known it at some point. From Hermione's slight flush whenever she mentioned Kirke, Mary thought the older girl might have overcome her infatuation with their ridiculous excuse for a defense professor, but she didn't ask, because she preferred not to talk about the insufferable man at all if she could help it.

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September and October passed quickly for Mary, between classes, Quidditch practice, and trying to find time to maintain her minimal social life. Before she knew it, some variation of the insidious, time-warping curse that affected the latter half of her first year had taken effect, and it was the last Saturday of October: Halloween already, and the first Quidditch match was exactly a week away.

Captain Flint did not cancel practice for the holiday, and in fact laughed when Lilian suggested the idea the day prior – not unkindly, because he knew that they would be exhausted come time for the Revel, but enough to crush the second-years' hopes of a day off. The resigned underclassmen trooped out to the field, bright and early, and returned to their dorm after lunch with hopes of catching a nap before the Feast, so that they would be able to make it through the very long night ahead.

It was not to be. All three dungeon levels, including the Slytherin dorms, were permeated by a hideous noise, like an unholy cross of fingernails scraping on slate and the most wretched screeching that could be coaxed from an abused violin.

By the time the Quidditch team returned from their practice, even the most stubborn of Slytherins had relocated, either to the library or to various abandoned classrooms, to wait out the racket. Mary and Lilian did not discover the source of the obnoxious sound until they came across the friendlier contingent of their yearmates, who were holed up in the girls' usual corner of the library with a slightly uncomfortable-looking Hermione. The Ravenclaw knew _of_ the other second-year Slytherins, of course (Mary and Lilian talked about them often enough), but she had never spent much time with them.

"Moon, Potter. Finally give up on the dungeons?" Blaise asked as they dropped their bags and looked around in confusion.

"You say finally like we were in the castle at all this morning," Lilian pointed out. "Practice ended just before lunch."

"Oh, right, _Quidditch_ ," Blaise rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Quidditch. What the hell is going on downstairs?" Mary asked.

Daphne and Blaise (and Hermione, who had apparently already heard the Slytherins' complaints at length) explained that one of the ghosts was celebrating a Death Day Party later that evening. The party was, the Slytherins had learned, basically a mockery of a birthday party, where a ghost commemorated major anniversaries of its death, and the noise was due to a spectral orchestra, which had assembled to play in honor of the Deathday Ghost, whichever one it was. No one they had spoken to knew or cared whose party it was, nor did they have any desire to attend, though apparently the Bloody Baron had dropped by the Slytherin common room that morning to pass along a mass invitation to the House. More to the point, no one could determine exactly where the unholy orchestra was practicing (and they did try, for much of the morning, according to Blaise and Daphne – several older students had offered to send the entire orchestra beyond the veil they could be found).

Hermione, who hadn't been in the dungeons to hear the noise herself, thought the Slytherins' poor attitude about the whole thing was a slight overreaction to a bit of unpleasant music. She thought they ought to go, since they had been invited, and because "How often do living people ever attend such an event?" The Slytherins, who vastly outnumbered her and who _had_ all heard the wailing, so-called 'music,' responded, "Never, and for good reason."

Slytherin House was apparently invited to some sort of ghost party every other year or so, according to Theo (who had gotten it from one of the prefects while Daphne and Blaise were orchestra-hunting), as a sort of courtesy paid to the neighbors, or so his informant had insisted. The ghosts did their social duty in informing the living of the event, the Slytherins were moderately less likely to complain to the Headmaster than they would have been if they weren't invited. Everyone involved understood that none of the living would ever attend, but the proprieties were satisfied all around.

Aside from the thoroughly unpleasant entertainment, rumor had it the ghosts never served food fit for living people, and even Hermione had to admit that none of the castle ghosts were great conversationalists ("Would you want to go to a party with Moaning Myrtle, Jeanie?"). As for the ghosts' perspective on the issue, Daphne summed it up best: "Granger, they scheduled it for a time when they _knew_ every human in the castle had a prior engagement. It's practically a flashing sign saying 'don't come.'"

"Fine!" Hermione had finally capitulated with a huff. "But I still think we're missing a great opportunity."

"We're not!" Mary and Lilian chorused, as quietly as they could. Madam Pince was hovering around their section of the stacks.

After that, the conversation shifted to less divisive topics: their shared Charms class, the homework for their other classes, and gossip about their fellow students.

Zacharias Smith had taken it upon himself over the course of the past two months to humiliate Lockhart in every possible way, most recently by volunteering whenever the 'professor' asked for a hand with his dramatic reconstructions of his defeat of various creatures. (They hadn't had another practical lesson since the first disastrous week with the Pixies.) Since no one else ever volunteered in the Slytherin/Hufflepuff class, Smith had already been a villager with a "Babbling Curse" which caused him to shout insults and curses at the 'professor' and a Yeti with a head cold who gave the 'professor' a bloody nose in the name of dramatic accuracy. When Lockhart gave him detention over it, Smith reportedly went to Professor Sprout, insisting that that was exactly what the Yeti had tried to do in the book, and he had fully expected Lockhart to block him, per the "script." She rescinded the punishment.

Hermione, who had Transfiguration and DADA with the Gryffindors, reported that Neville, who was her partner in Transfiguration, had finally gotten a new wand, and had since improved to being at least an average wizard, instead of the hopeless squib he had seemed in their first classes together. He was, the Slytherins noted, still terrible at Potions, but they could only hope he would gain a bit of confidence and stop blowing up their lab section every other week. As amusing as it was to intentionally ruin the Little Weasel's day every so often, it was just irritating when everyone constantly had to evacuate because Longbottom melted another cauldron.

And Lilian managed to get Hermione to confirm the rumors that Padma Patil was currently in a fight with her Gryffindor twin and Lavender Brown over Cedric Diggory, an older Hufflepuff. According to unfounded gossip (which in Hogwarts could be either surprisingly accurate or entirely wrong, but never anywhere in the middle), Brown and Red Patil were fighting over which of them was allowed to make a move on Diggory (who would doubtless be uninterested in either of them anyway), while Blue Patil was furious with her twin for losing her head over any boy, and with Brown for isolating her already-unpopular sister further within her dorm. Daphne was perhaps a bit too pleased about this, and Mary couldn't help but wonder what was in it for her.

It was common knowledge that neither Sophie Roper nor Fay Dunbar, the other second-year Gryffindor girls, cared much for Red Patil or Brown. It was less common knowledge that Dunbar and Daphne had been chatting every so often since their meeting on the train on the way back to school, and had contrived between the two of them to instigate two large, cross-house all-female cliques. Almost all the Hufflepuff second-year girls (with the exception of Leanne Malone, who spent most of her time with Wayne Hopkins and Ollie Rivers) loosely followed Dunbar's lead, as did Roper, who many of the second-years thought was so meek that she must have been mis-sorted.

Daphne, on the other hand, was making serious inroads with the Ravenclaw second-years and Slytherin first-years. She made a face whenever it was brought up, and said that dealing with Ravenclaws was like herding cats, but Lisa Turpin, Su Li, and Mandy Brocklehurst, as well as all the new snakeling girls (except Nora Blum, who was a loner, and Artie Seran, who mostly associated with her older sister) followed her. So far as Mary and Lilian could figure, it was Daphne's plan to eventually unite their two factions and wrest the title of most popular underclassman girl at Hogwarts from Cho Chang, a pretty Ravenclaw in the year ahead of them, who was uncommonly social for one of her house. Exactly how Dunbar fit into the end-game and why Daphne wanted this title, Mary couldn't fathom, but apparently she did.

In any case, Daphne seemed pleased that Red Patil and Brown were becoming more isolated from one another, and she was pleased with Lilian and Hermione for confirming the rumors. Her pleasant mood carried over to the others. As Catherine said, a good hostess can make or break the atmosphere of a party, and the same principles obviously applied to sullen gatherings in abandoned corners of the library. The latter half of their afternoon was spent in amiable conversation, chipping away idly at their ever-present list of homework assignments. The five Slytherins and Hermione entered the Great Hall for the Halloween feast in high spirits, despite the early-morning Quidditch practice and the ghost-imposed exile from their dorm, whispering about the Revel and how best to sneak out of the castle at the appointed time.

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The Halloween Feast was even more brilliant than the previous year's, with a troop of animated human skeletons demonstrating ballroom dances to creepy organ music during the main course, and a thundering herd of ghostly horsemen who charged through dessert, playing polo with what appeared to be their leader's head. Thankfully, the ghost orchestra stayed confined in whatever subdungeon they were occupying for the evening, and, as expected, none of the usual Hogwarts ghosts made an appearance. There were enormous floating jack-o-lanterns, lit from inside as well as the usual flocks of floating candles. The only thing missing was the bats, which had spent the previous year swooping down on the students (though never actually touching them). The half-moon was bright above them, and the stars shone clearly in the cloudless sky, some enchantment helping their light overcome that of the candles.

The first years goggled at the decorations and entertainment, and the older students tried valiantly not to look as impressed as they were. Mary overheard Enyo Seran telling her little sister that this was the best Halloween display the school had come up with in at least her four years. Mary was very glad they had managed to convince Hermione that this was truly the better way to spend their evening, because it surely would have been some kind of crime to miss it.

The house elves had outdone themselves on the sweets, serving delicate, animated, spun-sugar trifles in the shape of dangerous creatures alongside the main course. They lasted until the very end of the feast, as no one wanted to be the first to break the wing of a dragon or the manticore's tail. When they finally did, the creatures fought back, and had to be subdued with the students' dinner knives. They bled various flavors of custard and syrup. Mary helped her fellow second-years slay and butcher a Scylla filled with raspberry custard and chocolate syrup. It was delicious, and the most fun she had had at any Hogwarts feast. She decided she would have to tell Cammy how impressed all the students were the next time she saw the elf.

It was, Mary thought, probably the best evening she had ever had at Hogwarts, which was saying a lot, since most of her best memories had happened at the Castle. She couldn't wait for the Revel, which she thought would be the perfect end to an already magical night.

In retrospect, she should have known something would go wrong. Hermione kept insisting that two instances did not a pattern make, especially when one was eleven years before, so she could not reasonably have predicted that the evening would take a nasty turn.

Mary, however, realized the truth as soon as she came on the scene by Moaning Myrtle's loo: She was clearly cursed never to have an uneventful Samhain. Halloween in the muggle world had always been her favorite holiday, but between her parents dying, the Troll Incident, and whatever stupidity was going on with the Chamber of Secrets and Filch's not-quite-murdered cat, the magical equivalent didn't have quite the same charm. And to make matters worse, when the Slytherins returned to their common room, Professor Snape had swept in and announced that the Revel was cancelled, for real. They were absolutely _not_ to sneak out, because the Chamber was a _Slytherin_ myth, and woe betide any Slytherin found out of bounds on the night the Chamber was claimed to be opened again.

Even Draco, who had been so amused in the corridor, reading the message: "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware," at the top of his voice, and laughing about how the mudbloods would be next (which earned him a stomped foot from Mary and a very irritated look from Hermione), was nervous, sitting in the common room and listening to the upperclassmen discuss how this would affect Slytherin as a house. The overwhelming consensus was that this would be bad for their already-tarnished image.

The message had been daubed with what looked like fresh blood (but smelled like paint), in dripping, foot-high letters. The caretaker's evil cat was found, hanging by her tail from a torch bracket, stiff as a board, looking for all the world like she was dead. The Gryffindors had been the first to pass the message on their way to their tower, but it wasn't long until the news spread back down the stairs to the Great Hall, and then most of the school had gathered, morbidly curious. Filch was accusing each person he saw in turn of killing his poor Mrs. Norris, which was amusing in its own way. Not that many of them hadn't _wanted_ to kill the demonic beast at one time or another, but no one believed that Ron Weasley or Neville Longbottom actually had the stones to do it. And besides, the Headmaster had proclaimed that the cat wasn't dead at all, but merely petrified. (Someone said that Lockhart had been the first professor on the scene, and loudly declared that he knew exactly which curse had killed her, but then, after Dumbledore made his announcement, equally loudly declared that he had recognized it as petrification all along, which was almost as funny as the idea of Longbottom killing the cat.)

The myth, such as it was, was far more interesting than the fact that the cat had been petrified.

According to Monty and Flint, the Chamber of Secrets was a room, built and enchanted by Slytherin himself before he was driven out of the castle. Slytherin was well-known for his views on muggleborns – he thought they were substandard wizards and ought not be allowed in the school. It was said he had gotten into an argument with Gryffindor over the matter. The other three founders sided with him, and that's why he was forced out. The Chamber housed a monster, and the legend said that Slytherin's true heir would one day find and command the monster to kill all the muggleborns in the school.

The story was interrupted at that point by Wendy Madden and Arthur Roth, who declared everything that Monty and Flint were saying to be utter rubbish. The Quidditch captain took exception to the interruption, and demanded they prove their claims. Unfortunately for Flint, Wendy disappeared into the House Library for about five minutes, and reappeared with an ancient-looking scroll and several books and shoved them into the incredulous boy's hands. According to these, the newcomers claimed, Slytherin was either muggleborn or halfblood himself.

Monty had nearly wet himself laughing at that claim, and the upperclassman onlookers had muttered about how _of course_ Madden and Roth would claim Slytherin wasn't a pureblood, because neither of their families had been pure for generations.

Arthur pressed the case, heedless of the murmurs. It wasn't as though either he or his girlfriend were especially popular to begin with – he could afford to tell his story without incurring too much additional social stigma.

Slytherin, supposedly, if one believed Roth and Madden, had at least one muggle parent, and had been a near-victim of a particularly vicious witch-hunt as a child. He did not trust muggles, and he feared that muggleborns, the ones who did not give up their muggle heritage and all ties to the muggle world, would, on the whole, be too indoctrinated into their parents' religion and beliefs to ever fit in with magicals. All it would take, he warned, was one untrustworthy muggleborn to destroy their fledgling school, betraying them to the muggles. The monster in the Chamber was meant to protect the school at need, against invasion and traitors alike, but probably hadn't been intended to kill muggleborns, no matter how the heirs had used it in the past.

A heated debate arose, with most of the students in the common room taking one side or the other. Mary and Lilian, and, somewhat surprisingly, Blaise, Daphne, and Theo, were with the much smaller group supporting Madden and Roth. Mary thought that their argument made more sense – they gave a reason _why_ Slytherin hadn't wanted muggleborns around – though the latter three might only have chosen their side to oppose Draco and Pansy, who were vehemently supporting a Pureblooded Slytherin. Aradia Carmichael, and thus her clique, Mary noted, didn't take a side, which she thought probably meant their leader didn't know which side would be the winners, and she didn't want to choose incorrectly. There was a lot of shouting, and the two sides managed to segregate themselves on opposite sides of the common room, but no offensive spells were cast. It wasn't often Slytherin managed to so thoroughly divide itself, and the older snakes especially hesitated to hex potential allies, even out of the eyes of the other houses.

Professor Snape came back half an hour later to report that the cat could be fixed, and so far there was no evidence that the Chamber of Secrets was indeed open and that the evening's events not the result of a joke in very poor tastes. The Headmaster was of the opinion that no student would have the knowledge or power to pull off such a prank, but Professor Snape said he believed it to be within the capabilities of many sixth and seventh-years, had they managed to access the right texts. At this he gave a hard look to several older students from Dark families, whose parents would likely have such books in their private libraries. The Revel, he reminded them before he swept out of the common room for the second time that evening, was still cancelled.

The presence of their head of house quelled the brewing storm, and after his announcement, almost everyone stalked off to their own bedrooms (or perhaps for the older students, to continue to talk in their friends' rooms). Mary lay in bed, too angry to sleep, mulling over all that she had heard. A few facts could be more or less distinguished from the furious tirade of insults and verbal assaults.

The most interesting thing was that, although they disagreed on its purpose, no one denied that the Chamber or the Monster existed. They didn't know what the monster was, but it had supposedly been active at least once before, about fifty years ago. A Slytherin prefect had gotten a special award for services to the school for "catching" the monster, which had been attacking (muggleborn) students all year and eventually killed one. Opinions were divided over whether this prefect had caught the real monster, or had just taken advantage of the situation and made something up, or had actually been the Heir framing someone for his misdeeds, or if the Chamber had even really been open then, either. Most people on both sides of the argument leaned toward the second explanation or the last one.

A decidedly less pleasant, though still interesting, thing was that Mary, apparently, was the most likely candidate to be the Heir. She had strongly implied as much the year before, when she put her Parseltongue abilities on display for the house. She hadn't realized it at the time, but by claiming that she belonged in Slytherin House, she had also implied that she belonged to the House of Slytherin. And that, she suspected, was very, very bad, especially if someone was going to go around attacking muggleborns essentially in her name.

The Slytherins, of course, knew she hadn't done it, because she had been with Lilian, Blaise, Daphne, and Theo all afternoon, and certainly hadn't left the feast to go petrify a cat. She couldn't imagine when she would even have had time to find the Chamber of Secrets, given her currently hectic schedule. Everyone in the house, so far as Mary could gather from the alibis shouted across the common room, had been present and accounted for, either at the feast, or with the upperclassmen setting up the Samhain Revel that wasn't, or (in two different cases) by exactly one other person with whom they had been snogging in a broom cupboard.

But it did not seem likely that the rest of the school would accept her witnesses' word so easily. She was not looking forward to dealing with them.

Friday, 6 November 1992 Hogwarts

By Tuesday, nearly everyone but the Slytherins and Mary's close friends were actively avoiding her. This was a subtle difference from the school's usual response to her presence. Normally, most of the Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws treated her like any other Slytherin, occasionally giving her suspicious looks, but for the most part letting her get on with her day without interruption. Now, the Hufflepuffs were crossing corridors to avoid her, and sitting as far away as possible in their shared classes – Justin Finch-Fletchley actually turned and ran away when he came across Mary alone in the library, the twit! – and the Gryffindors began to _growl_ at her every time she got too close to them. (Professor Snape had used this as an excuse to take twenty points from the Lions in Potions on Friday.) Even the Ravenclaws, who normally got along better with Slytherin than any other house, were warily keeping their distance, though in fairness to the Ravens, they were warily avoiding all the other Snakes, too.

Hermione, when Mary and Lilian told her about the information they had gathered in the common room after the school found out about the writing on the wall (carefully leaving out the fact that a good three-quarters of their house was currently not speaking to the remaining quarter over whether their founder had been a pureblood or not – that was an internal matter), grew pensive.

"Hmmm…," she said, tapping her lips with her pen. "That fits with what I remember from _Hogwarts a History_ on the Chamber."

Now that she mentioned it, Mary did seem to recall hearing of the Chamber of Secrets before. "Doesn't it just say that the Chamber is a myth, and supposedly contains a monster?"

"Yes," Lilian confirmed, surprising both of the others. "What? I read! You act like you've never seen me pick up a book before!" She threw a wadded up bit of parchment at Hermione, which got stuck in her hair.

"We know you read," the older girl said distractedly, trying to retrieve the parchment. "You just never mentioned you'd read that book. Lizzie?" She looked at Mary with pleading eyes, and with a sigh, the green-eyed Slytherin plucked the ball of parchment from her hair.

"You really should invest in learning a hair-taming charm or three," Lilian commented.

"The Heir of Slytherin may be commanding some mythical monster to go around attacking students," "Cats," Mary interjected, "and you think I ought to be worried about my hair? Priorities, Lili!"

Lilian shrugged. "What are you going to do about the Chamber? At least your hair is a problem you can deal with."

And at that, an unholy light entered Hermione's eyes. Had she seen herself at that moment, she probably would have thought that she bore an uncanny resemblance to her mother, for all they looked very little alike. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do about the Chamber," she said, her tone somewhere between excited and angry. "I'm going to figure out who's doing it, and why!"

And with that she gathered up her books and swept out of the library.

"Challenge accepted," Mary murmured, watching her first friend walk away.

Lilian grinned. "Hermione Granger, girl detective, is on the case!"

Mary looked at her askance. She didn't know the reference, but she did know that wizards didn't have detectives. "You know, sometimes I think you know more about muggle culture than I do."

"I probably do. My parents don't care what we get up to, and Sean used to take me and Aerin to the muggle library and the theater when he was tired of watching us. You lived in a cupboard until you came to Hogwarts."

Mary could think of nothing to say to that, so she returned to her Transfiguration essay, trying to push the Heir of Slytherin nonsense out of her mind.

The Slytherins did not see much of Hermione for several days. When she reappeared, they learned that she had managed to verify that the Chamber had, indeed, been opened in the early 1940s, and that Moaning Myrtle, the teenage ghost who haunted the second-floor girls' loo, was the ghost of the girl who was killed back then: Myrtle Phelps, a Ravenclaw muggleborn. Hermione had tried to talk to her about how she had died, and offended her so badly that she dove into a toilet, spraying the living girl and the entire bathroom with water. It was probably clean enough, since no one ever used that loo if they could help it, and especially not that toilet, but it was hilarious in concept, and Mary and Lilian vowed never to let Hermione live it down.

The Ravenclaw gave them a _look_ promising eternal retribution if they followed through on that threat, but wisely said nothing more on the subject. She had considered trying to track down the student who had "captured" the monster before, but decided that that would be a fool's errand. Clearly he (or she) hadn't managed to _actually_ close the Chamber for good, so she assumed, like most of the older Slytherins, that he (or she) had just taken advantage of the attacks to make a name for him- (or her-) self.

Instead of chasing down sixty-five-year-old ex-Slytherin Prefects, Hermione had spent most of Wednesday and Thursday keeping an eye out for anything suspicious in the castle. The only strange thing she found was that every spider in the castle seemed to desperately want to be _out_ of the castle. Mary and Lilian had noticed them, too, evacuating the classrooms in skittering hoards on Wednesday. Unfortunately, as a clue, it was somewhat lacking: After talking to some of the older Ravenclaws, Hermione was fairly certain that someone had just renewed the anti-pest wards, driving them out.

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On Friday, the Weasley twins ambushed Mary and Lilian on the way back to the dungeons after Quidditch practice, dragging them into a classroom where Hermione was already waiting, tapping her toe impatiently.

"We, dearest snakelings,"

"Have a problem."

Mary and Lilian exchanged a look with each other and then with Hermione, who shrugged. She looked a bit irritated that the twins hadn't filled her in on their problem already.

"What is it?" Mary asked.

The boys gave a theatrical sigh. "Our idiot brother," "and his little buddy Neville," "think that your housemate," "Malfoy," "is the Heir of Slytherin."

Both Mary and Lilian started laughing at this.

"Why are you laughing?" Hermione asked angrily. "This is important!"

"It's not Malfoy," Mary said.

"Haven't you heard? It's Mary," Lilian pointed out, still giggling.

"No it's not." Hermione scowled at her friends. "I can't believe you aren't taking this seriously."

Lilian rolled her eyes. "It's not that we're not taking you seriously, it's just that…" she trailed off, trying to find a way to explain their apparent disinterest in Hermione's mystery.

"It's Mrs. Norris!" Mary blurted out. It wasn't like a _person_ had actually been attacked.

The twins and Lilian laughed. Hermione turned her glare on Mary.

"It's still not Malfoy, anyway," Lilian said.

"How do," "you know?"

"He's not related to Slytherin at all. He's the heir of Malfoy. Their whole family history is known since they came over with the Normans, and there's no Slytherins in it. Why don't _you_ know that?"

The twins rolled their eyes at Lilian. "Because pureblood history," "is boring."

"But it has to be _someone_ in Slytherin," Hermione said. "Not Malfoy, maybe, and not Mary, but… We should find some way to question the upperclassmen."

"What did," "you have in mind?" the twins were giving Hermione an amused and evaluating look.

"Well… Professor Snape mentioned something in class the other week. Polyjuice potion?"

"We may," "have heard of it," the Twins said. Mary and Lilian shook their heads. Snape definitely hadn't mentioned it in their section, but that wasn't entirely unexpected. He didn't lecture much unless he was answering questions, and the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs asked far more than the Slytherins. Gryffindors didn't even bother trying. They lost points for breathing too loudly on occasion. Speaking would only draw Professor Snape's irritated attention to themselves.

"It lets you look like anyone for an hour," Hermione explained. "I bet I could get the recipe, and then we could pretend to be upperclassmen and ask around to see if anyone knows what's going on!"

"Are you thinking the same thing I am, Fred?"

"Of course I'm the better looking twin." Fred ducked George's cuff at the back of his head with a snigger. "Yes, there are many things we could do with such a potion," he said, slightly more seriously.

"It's in a book in the restricted section – I'd just need to get a note from a professor to take it out… and then I suppose some of the ingredients might be a bit difficult to acquire… but you guys would help, right?"

"Anything for you," "Hermione, dear."

Mary and Lilian exchanged a look. There was really no point in trying to impersonate Slytherins, especially upperclassmen. Mary tried to object, but George spoke over her.

"Lockhart will sign anything that stands still long enough," he pointed out.

"And we specialize in acquiring difficult items," Fred added.

"I thought you specialized in pranks and mayhem."

"That too," the boys answered Lilian in tandem.

"Guys, wait!" Mary finally broke in. "It's not going to work."

"Of course it will! I'm sure I can do it," Hermione said. "All you have to do is follow the instructions." That pretty much summed up her approach to Potions.

"Yes, that part will be fine, I'm sure, but the older Slytherins will know you're an imposter right away."

"She's right. You'd never get past their wards to go anywhere private, and it's not like they'd just sit around the commons chatting about this sort of thing."

That wasn't what Mary had meant, though it was absolutely true. "None of you are really very Slytherin, either," she tried to clarify.

"Did you just hear Not-Mary volunteering, George?"

"I believe I did, O favorite brother mine," George said.

The twins had a gleam of amusement in their eyes, but Hermione looked deadly serious. "I'll get the book, then, and we'll see what we need to do!"

"But, I –"

"We have to go, we're going to be late for curfew!" Hermione cut Mary off.

"Indeed, wouldn't want to break curfew," "while we're considering how to brew dangerous," "and possibly illegal," "potions to impersonate a bunch of older Snakes," "to question them about the Chamber of Secrets!" "That's just a step too far."

"Oh, shut up, you two! Mary, good luck with the match tomorrow! I'll be cheering for you." And with that, Hermione was gone.

"What about us?" one of the boys said, slipping out the door after her. "Yeah, we're playing too!" his twin said as the troublemaking trio moved away toward the stairs. The quickest way to both of their towers lay together for at least a few floors.

"What the bloody hell just happened?" Mary asked, blinking at Lilian in confusion.

"I think we've just been press-ganged into some sort of half-cooked shenanigan." Lilian looked as confused as Mary felt.

"But… It will never work."

"No, but can you see us convincing Hermione of that?"

"Maybe if we tell her… Professor Snape has everything under control?"

"Well, he has been questioning people, right?"

"I think so. Carmichael and Grey were complaining yesterday about having to meet with him."

"So if she brings it up again, we'll tell her it's sorted, and we want nothing to do with it, right?"

"Right."

"Come on then, we're going to be late, too." The bell for curfew was already ringing.

Course of action decided, the Slytherins sneaked back to their common room and the sullen silence that had prevailed there all week as the house sorted out their opinions on their founder's history.


	9. help

**Chapter 8: "help"**

[Dobby. Lockhart. Creevey. I do not think that word means what you think it means…]

Saturday, 7 November 1992

 _The Great Hall_

"I think I'm going to be sick."

Mary was sitting at the Slytherin table with the friendly half of her cohort, picking at her toast. She had not been nervous about the upcoming match until she entered the Great Hall the morning of, which was when she suddenly realized that at least half the school was staring at her, in a way they hadn't done since the very beginning of her first year.

"Don't be stupid, Liz. You'll be fine," Lilian reassured her. "You have to be," she added, shooting a look down the table at the other second-year Slytherin clique. "If you don't play, Malfoy will be seeker, and you'll never live it down."

"You really know how to encourage a girl, don't you, Moon," Blaise commented as Mary let her forehead drop to the table.

"What? It's true!" Lilian insisted. The other second-years sniggered. Even Mary's shoulders shook a bit.

"All right," she said, hauling herself upright, "but I can't deal with all these people staring at me." It was like they couldn't decide whether they expected great things from her, or terrible ones. Their eyes were unnerving. "I'm going to the loo, and then out to the pitch. I'll see you after the match, yeah?"

A chorus of positive responses met her ears and she struggled free of the bench, only to come face-to-lens with one of her least-favorite people in the castle. She groaned internally. Aloud, she only sniped at him as she tried to brush past. "Did your bloody housemates send you over hoping to unsettle me before the match? Step off, Creevey!"

"Hey, Mary," the boy replied, chronically incapable of taking a hint. He had, in fact, left her alone after the incident during the Quidditch trials, but it seemed that he had finally gathered his Gryffindor hard-headedness to approach her again. "I was wondering –"

"If you could have a photo? No! Bugger off!"

"I just think we got off on the wrong foot, and I've done all the Gryffindors – don't you want to remember the day?" the fanboy asked desperately.

"I'm certain the day will be memorable enough without your involvement. Leave me alone!"

She began to walk away, only to be stopped by a small, tentative hand on her arm as she stepped away from the boy. Her eyes narrowed at him. He swallowed hard, but didn't let go. "Please?"

"Oh, that is _it_!" Mary was fuming. She grabbed the front of his robes and dragged him up to the head table, stopping in front of professors Snape and Sinistra, who had been watching the confrontation with interest. They crossed the sound-dampening wards which stopped professors' conversations from being audible to the entire hall. The astronomy and potions professors were, perhaps unsurprisingly, discussing the cause of the impact of celestial movements in the gathering of certain potions ingredients. Mary waited patiently until her Head of House broke off his conversation and raised an eyebrow at her, her captive mumbling about not meaning anything by it, and trying to squirm out of her grasp.

Everyone in the hall was watching them, now, but then, they had already been watching Mary.

"My apologies for interrupting your breakfast, professors," she said, loudly enough to carry halfway down the length of their table, "But I would like to formally and publically register a complaint against another student with my Head of House."

The look which Professor Snape fixed on the Gryffindor boy would have been disconcerting to Mary, and she was a Slytherin. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to be the recipient of Professor Snape's irritation if he had no reason to like you at all. Creevey cowered, trying to hide behind Mary. "What is the nature of your complaint, Miss Potter?" The potions master's voice was dry and smooth, as usual, though she thought she could detect a hint of amusement, which wasn't always present.

"Mr. Colin Creevey of Gryffindor House," she said, hauling him around to face the professors, "has repeatedly attempted to take my photo against my wishes, molesting me in public, despite my repeated requests for him to stop. He knows my class schedule and follows me around, and he nearly got me killed at my Quidditch trial, blinding me just as I was coming out of a dive, two meters from the ground." The professor's eyes narrowed. "I would like to enter a complaint of stalking, and request that Mr. Creevey be officially banned from my presence."

And then the headmaster swooped down on them. His crimson robes had tiny golden phoenixes embroidered on it. On the day of the Slytherin-Gryffindor match, he might as well have worn a sign proclaiming his support for the lions. Mary was hard-pressed not to sneer at him for his blatant favoritism. "Surely, Mary, my dear, Mr. Creevey hasn't offended so greatly as all that," the old man suggested in a consoling tone. Professor Snape was glaring bloody murder at his boss.

"Nearly. Got. Me. Killed. Sir," she repeated, enunciating clearly. "Draco Malfoy will vouch for my claims. He's the one who said I managed to pull up about a foot from the ground. I couldn't see anything."

"But this was nearly two months ago, dear girl. I fail to see… why now?"

Professor McGonagall approached and hovered, clearly unable to determine whether she should defend her ward or her student. Mary ignored her. It was probably for the best if she just stayed out of it.

She very dearly wanted to take the Headmaster to task over his continual familiarity, insisting on calling her his dear girl. But that would distract from the task at hand. "Because, sir, I yelled at him on that day, and he's left me alone since. But this morning, just now, in fact, he approached me _yet again_ and asked me for another photo, a request I have denied at least three dozen times now."

"Perhaps you should just give the poor boy his photo, then, and let bygones be bygones." Dumbledore had a twinkle in his eye as he suggested Mary simply capitulate to the stupid boy's incessant demand.

"No."

"No, my dear?"

" _No_ , sir. I will not give him what he wants simply because he has been stalking me. That's just bound to make it worse, and I don't give out photos of myself. I'm not a bloody celebrity!"

"Language, Miss Potter!" Dumbledore reprimanded her gently. "And I do believe most of the world would beg to differ in regards to your celebrity status."

Mary glared at the old man, trying desperately to think of an appropriate response, only to receive help from an unexpected quarter.

"Nevertheless, Headmaster, it is not incumbent on any person to bow before the demands of others simply due to their personal notoriety or the frequency with which such demands are made," Professor Sinistra interjected, more smoothly than Mary had thought the astronomy professor capable. "Need I call to mind the circumstances surrounding the most recent appointment of the Minister for Magic?"

Dumbledore actually blushed at that. Professor Snape looked delighted – or at least as close to delighted as Mary suspected it was possible for the professor to look.

"Well, that is… ahem…" the Headmaster blustered.

Professor Snape smoothly talked over him. "Miss Potter, in light of the accusations brought forth today, and given the fact that you share neither house nor year, your request is not unreasonable, pending further investigation by myself and a staff member not affiliated with either student. Professor Sinistra, if you would?" The astronomy professor nodded. "Mr. Creevey, you will refrain from speaking to Miss Potter, you will not attempt to take any photos of her, and you will avoid being within fifty feet of her whenever possible. You will be notified when our investigations have concluded. If you are found to have willfully violated these restrictions before that time, fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor house, and the restrictions will be magically enforced, regardless of the results of the investigation. If the accusation is found to be legitimate, these restrictions will be magically enforced. If the accusation is found to be illegitimate, Miss Potter, you may appeal to the Deputy Headmistress. If the findings are upheld, you will most likely be asked to offer a public apology and accede to Mr. Creevey's demands."

Mary nodded. She had expected as much. "Yes sir. Thank you, sir." She released her hold on the now-furious Creevey.

"You mean I can't even _talk_ to her now?" he questioned the professors in a huff.

"I daresay the young lady has made it clear enough that she never wanted to talk to you in the first place," Professor Sinistra said coolly. "You will be summoned if and when we choose to speak to you regarding your behavior in relation to Miss Potter. You are dismissed."

The boy stomped away, doubtless to go complain to his housemates about Mary.

"Here, now, Aurora," the Headmaster tried to interrupt, but the witch turned on him with a hiss.

"You come perilously close to suggesting that we are to ignore blatantly threatening behavior toward one of our female students, Albus."

"Of course not, Aurora, dear, but –"

"Albus, _dear_ ," the professor said scathingly, "The muggles have a lovely little phrase I'm quite fond of: quit while you're behind."

Professor Snape cleared his throat softly. "I believe it's 'quit while you are ahead,' Sinistra."

Professor Sinistra threw a withering look at her employer. "That would be an impossibility in this circumstance, Snape."

The headmaster turned on his heel and returned to his seat, apparently unwilling to start an argument with the two Slytherin professors in the middle of the Great Hall. They saw him off with matching sneers, before turning their attention back to Mary.

Professor Sinistra grumbled something very much like, "Interfering, misogynistic old goat," while Professor Snape assured Mary that their investigation would take place over the two weeks to follow, and she would be apprised of their findings at that time.

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, you are dismissed."

"Thank you again, sir."

Mary turned to go, smiling as she heard Professor Sinistra saying behind her, "Five points to Slytherin for actually knowing and applying the school rules instead of just hexing the little creep's face off."

She did not look back, nor at the student tables, as she left the Hall, mind firmly fixed once again on the upcoming match.

 _The Quidditch Pitch_

The day was overcast, as so many days had been lately. Flint gave the team a pep-talk in the locker-rooms before-hand (which could be summed up as: You all know we're the best, so let's go out and prove it), and charmed Mary's glasses to repel water, just in case it started to rain. Bletchley, their keeper, had done the same for himself. They weren't allowed in practice, because Flint thought it was a good training strategy, to force them to fly half-blind. It would give them a leg up in the actual match.

Lee Jordan announced the team as they trooped onto the pitch. Madam Hooch, with a note of resignation in her tone, declared that she wanted a nice, clean game from all of them. Flint just smirked at her when she gave him a hard look. The captains shook hands – likely harder than necessary, from the look on Wood's face – and then with a whistle, they were off.

"Luck, Potter," Malfoy called as he hurtled into formation with the other chasers.

"Skill, not luck," she called back as she made her first pass through the scrum, causing an unsuspecting Gryffindor to drop the Quaffle. She heard the blonde boy cackling behind her as she peered around for the Snitch. Thorpe, the Gryffindor seeker, seemed to be sticking to the same strategy he had used the year before, circling above the action.

A bludger came out of nowhere, just as the first fat raindrops fell from the sky. Mary dodged, resigning herself to yet another wet, cold afternoon. Montague knocked the bludger toward one of the Gryffindor girls, but it inexplicably turned around mid-flight to target Mary again.

"What in the nine bloody hells?!" she heard Montague exclaim behind her as she shot off, bludger in pursuit. She executed a near-perfect flip-reversal just in front of the Gryffindor goal posts. Wood, their keeper, ducked the bludger, which didn't have her maneuverability, and shouted something incomprehensible at her. She was already off, headed upward, in the hopes that the mad iron ball would be attracted to the scrum if she got far enough away.

No such luck.

She heard a whistling behind her as the ball caught up. It was faster than she was, if not by much. She had to be three-hundred feet up. She had passed Thorpe lurking around the two-fifty mark. He must be farsighted, if he was planning to spot the Snitch from there. There was no "top" of a Quidditch pitch, technically, but the anti-lightning wards were placed at five-hundred feet, and the Snitch hardly ever ventured above the fifty-meter mark.

Mary's hands tightened on the shaft of her broom. If she couldn't outrun it, perhaps she could break it. She pulled another flip-turn, this one sending her straight toward the ground, spiraling slightly to avoid the bludger. She passed it, and watched beneath her arm as it overshot her, then turned, following, two seconds behind and gaining. If her estimations were correct – and she had found she was very good at these estimations after two months of practice – it had overshot by about ten feet. If she could get closer to the ground than that, there was a good chance it would impact, and hopefully be damaged enough that it could be replaced.

These thoughts ran through her mind very quickly – not even fully consciously. She passed Thorpe again, pushing herself faster as the bludger gained ground. It was inches away from her tail as she hit the scrum, diving recklessly through the other players, who scattered in her wake. She distantly heard Madam Hooch's whistle blow, but she could hardly stop – twenty meters to go – ten – five. She tightened her grip and threw herself backward, transferring her downward momentum to forward just in time to avoid both ground and bludger. Mud splattered over her as she was flung across the pitch, nearly out of control, toes skimming the rain-soaked grass.

The whistle blew again, and she slowed, looking around. There was a mass of green robes near their goalposts, on the ground. She joined them, breathing hard.

"What the bloody hell is going on, Potter?" Flint demanded, as soon as she was within earshot.

"No idea! That bludger's been chasing me all game. I haven't seen it go after anyone else at all."

"Right." Flint looked grim, and none of the others looked much better. It would be incredibly difficult to win if their seeker was constantly under attack, though they were, apparently, sixty points up.

Their captain stomped off to talk to the referee. A moment later they heard his raised voice competing with Wood. "The damn thing's been tampered with!"

"It can't have been!"

"Well how else do you explain my seeker pulling a Wronski Feint on a bloody bludger?! It's tracking her!"

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Agree to a change of equipment, moron!"

The three were slowly approaching the Slytherin team.

"Not having it, Flint! You've probably cursed the spare snitch or some such. Only one equipment substitution per game, isn't it?"

"You… paranoid… git! Can't you see there's something going on here? Madam Hooch, can't you overrule him?"

"Sorry, Mr. Flint, you know the rules." Madam Hooch sounded smug. "Either you both must agree to substitute all the balls, or you may forfeit, if you are so concerned for your seeker's safety."

Flint said nothing, but stomped back to the team at that. "Wood's being a right bastard," he reported. "So we either forfeit, or deal with it. Potter, we can't afford the beaters to be on bodyguard duty. Can you handle it?"

Mary considered for a long moment. She probably could. She certainly was more maneuverable. And there was no reason she couldn't keep using it like she had against Wood in her first attempt to shake it off. It would be harder to spot the snitch, but not too much worse than when she was involved in the plays. "Yeah. I'll make it work," she finally decided, "but I don't think I can dodge it and do my part in the plays."

Flint waved this away. "Break things up when you can, but otherwise focus on finding the damn snitch. Bole, you and I will alternate between the Kappa, Hinkypunk, and Redcap plays. Malfoy, you know the seeker's parts?" The blond nodded. "Fly those, then. We may pass to you on occasion, but we'll avoid it. Warrington, Montague, control the second bludger. With only one of them to worry about, we shouldn't have any unwanted interference. Got it?" The team nodded grimly. A rogue bludger was not one of the many things they had a plan to deal with. "Good. Back in the air."

The team kicked off, and play resumed. The bludger, undaunted by its trip into the mud, picked up where it had left off, trailing Mary around the pitch as she dipped and weaved, jinked and dodged, eyes wide behind her glasses as she peered around for the snitch. She looped and swooped, spiraled and rolled. At one point a Weasley sent the second bludger at her as well, and she was forced to stall her broom, nearly upright, and spin, dropping through the air – a pirouette-turn.

The rain was sheeting down. Another near miss by the bludger as she ducked and flipped, and then – she saw it! It was hovering near the top of the Gryffindor goal-posts. Thorpe was nearer. Mary hesitated for the briefest moment, trying to decide whether he had seen it, and whether she could catch it before he did, if she charged it just then, and trying to hear the commentary over the rain – were they ahead enough that it didn't matter?

The briefest moment was too long – the bludger, denied for what felt like hours, finally made contact. Mary felt her right arm crack, and immediately felt sick. She clung to her broom with her left hand as the evil ball circled around for another pass. There was nothing for it – the game had to end, _now_. She pelted through the rain, directly at the snitch, tucking her broken arm as close to her body as possible.

Thorpe seemed oblivious, not moving until she sped past him. She thought he might be following, but that didn't matter. He would never catch up. The golden ball flitted away, headed for the ground, and jinking toward the Hufflepuff stands. Mary growled, diving in pursuit. She leaned forward and wrapped her legs around the tail of the broom as Seran had taught her, stretching her left hand out to capture the bloody thing, and kicking down hard with her right foot to push the nose of her broom up, out of its dive. The bludger overshot again, just as she wrapped her left arm back around the broom, steering it awkwardly toward Madam Hooch.

"I've got the snitch," she called, dropping abruptly past the older woman, who had to duck quickly to avoid the rogue bludger.

The referee blew her whistle, and both of the Slytherin beaters came to escort Mary to the ground, whacking the cursed ball away. She hovered lower and lower, until she could just roll off her broom, over her left arm and onto her back. It wasn't until she was safely lying in the mud, snitch in hand, that she truly realized how badly her arm throbbed.

"Alright, Potter?" Warrington asked, his eyes still on the sky.

"I got the snitch," she answered, somewhat nonsensically.

She thought she might have blacked out for a moment, then, because the next thing she remembered was 'professor' Lockhart hovering over her, grinning broadly.

"Aargh!" she shouted, flinching away from the sight of his face so close to her own, and then moaned in pain as she jostled her arm.

"Not to worry, not to worry! I'm just going to fix your arm!"

Mary opened her mouth to object, but Draco of all people got there first. "No you bloody well aren't," he said, hauling Mary up by her left arm. "Come on, Potter. Hospital wing."

She nodded gratefully, but Lockhart seized her shoulder, holding her in place. "Hold still, Mary, I've done this charm countless times –"

"No! I don't want your help. Let go of me! Flint! Fetch!" But the older Slytherins were off arguing about something with Madam Hooch and the Gryffindors – all four of the beaters were attempting to capture the rogue bludger – and Lockhart ignored Draco's objections as easily as Mary's own. He twirled his wand and directed it at Mary's arm.

A strange, unpleasant sensation started at her shoulder and worked its way down, as though her arm was being deflated. Malfoy gawked, and Mary couldn't help but look as well. Her arm – her proper, writing, wand-waving, Quidditch-playing arm – appeared to have been replaced by a thick, flesh-colored rubber glove, perhaps one filled with water, as it jiggled oddly when she moved.

It didn't hurt anymore, but it also felt nothing like an arm, and she couldn't move it at all. "What have you done?!" she shrieked. Malfoy sniggered, though whether at Mary or Lockhart she had no idea. Lilian and Hermione, who had just managed to push their way to the front of the crowd with Blaise and Daphne, gaped at her.

"Ah, yes, well. That can sometimes happen," the 'professor' brushed her off. "The point is, the bones are no longer broken! Now then, you just toddle on up to the Hospital wing, and ask Madam Pomfrey to tidy you up a bit, eh?"

If looks could kill, Mary's glare would have at least made a good attempt at bludgeoning the celebrity author. The Slytherins and Hermione escorted her through the crowd before she could say or do anything truly unfortunate to the idiot masquerading as a professor. They were halfway back to the school before Mary managed to form a coherent sentence.

"Hermione," she requested, her voice unnervingly calm, "Lilian, would you be so kind as to inform the Weasley twins and Morgana Yaxley that I have a joint project for them?"

Blaise and Lilian sniggered as Hermione said, "Erm… Lizzie… are you sure?"

"He's done for. If the curse doesn't get him by the end of the year, I want all of them to help me get him fired, at the very least. Though I wouldn't say no to complete and utter social humiliation, the likes of which he could never recover from. Do be a love and pass that on for me?"

Daphne joined in the giggles at this. Hermione just sighed. "Fine. I'll tell the Weasleys. But I want it on the record that I think this is a bad idea."

"Duly noted."

Mary failed to notice Draco looking at her with something like respect in his eyes.

 _Hospital Wing_

Madam Pomfrey was not pleased when Mary's escort dropped her off outside her domain, the Slytherins convincing Hermione that it was for the better to avoid the mediwitch if at all possible. Hermione and Lilian promised to visit her in the morning.

"You should have come straight to me!" she raged, holding up the floppy remainder of Mary's arm.

"I tried. Blame Lockhart," Mary defended herself.

"That bloody ponce! I can mend bones in a second, but growing them back? You'll have to stay the night."

The Matron allowed Mary to take a shower (trying all the while to avoid looking at the creepy thing which had taken the place of her arm) and helped her dress in hospital robes, which were not, she thought, altogether different from muggle hospital gowns. Once Mary was safely in bed, Madam Pomfrey bustled off, and returned shortly with a bottle labeled Skele-Gro.

"You're in for a rough night, I'm afraid," she said, pouring out a steaming measure and handing it to Mary. "Regrowing bones is a nasty business, and all the standard sleeping and pain potions have tricky reactions with skele-gro."

Mary groaned, then swallowed the potion as quickly as possible. It was wretched, burning as it went down. "Water?" she begged, coughing and spluttering. The matron passed her a glass, muttering to herself about dangerous sports and inept teachers.

Mary's arm began to fill with stabbing pains almost immediately, and it was with great difficulty that she fell asleep. She was woken to eat dinner and then spent several hours trying to fall asleep again, or, failing that, to reach the sort of not-quite-conscious state in which she had spent so many hours in the cupboard under Aunt Petunia's stairs. It was harder than she recalled, but that might have been because her arm bloody _hurt_.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Mary woke suddenly, an indeterminate amount of time later. It was dark, and she reached for her wand without thinking, only to whimper when she moved her right arm, which now felt like it was full of large splinters. She thought at first that she must have moved in her sleep, and the pain woken her, but then she realized, to her horror, that someone was sponging her forehead in the dark.

She shrieked, for the second time that day, though this time in terror, rather than rage. An elf-sized creature tumbled off the bed, and Mary realized she could make out his eyes gleaming in the darkness as her eyes adjusted to the low light of the ward. Dobby.

"What do you want?" she asked, heart still racing.

"Mary Potter has come back to Hogwarts," the elf whispered miserably. "Dobby warned and warned, but Miss Mary is not listening to Dobby." He was crying. A single tear was hanging from the point of his long nose.

"Of course I came back to school! I was never _not_ going to come back to school!" She sat up, trying to move her arm as little as possible, and wincing when she failed.

"Mary Potter must go home, miss! Hogwarts is not being safe for Miss Mary. Dobby's bludger was not enough to make Mary Potter go, but –"

Mary didn't particularly care what the elf was going to say next. "Your bludger? You made that bludger try to kill me?"

"Not kill you, miss! Never kill you! Dobby is wanting to save Mary Potter's life! Is beings better sent home grievously injured than to remain here, miss! Dobby only wanted Mary Potter hurt enough to be sent home! Dobby bes trying to _help._ "

Mary narrowed her eyes at the little creature. This was going to have to stop _now_. The stupid thing was clearly damaged in the head somehow – maybe too many punishments or something. But if he didn't stop trying to 'help' her, she wouldn't make it through Yule. "Cammy!" she called, her voice only slightly desperate.

Cammy appeared with a small pop. "Miss Mary, is miss hurt?" Dobby looked terrified.

"Cammy, stop that elf!" Mary ordered quickly. Cammy looked around, then pounced on Dobby, babbling at him in their high, squeaky elvin language.

They scuffled on the floor for a moment, and then three other Hogwarts elves appeared to help Cammy manage the intruder. Several minutes later, Dobby was pinned to the floor, with the largest of the three new elves sitting on his back. The two others held down his hands and feet as Cammy squeaked at him, angrily, Mary thought. The word 'tweelk' featured prominently. She wondered if it was an Elvish curse word.

Mary was loathe to interrupt, but she did want to know what was going on. "Erm… Cammy?"

The elf broke off her high-pitched tirade. "Yes, miss Mary?"

"What's going on?"

"Dobby is a bad elf!" Cammy declared. "He is not supposed to bes here. His masters dids not send him here. He is being hurting Hogwarts students, and bes trespassing in the halls of Hogwarts, where strange elves is not to go!"

"I don't suppose he said _why_ he's here?" she asked.

Cammy squeaked at Dobby for another moment, and received a response, and a shaken head.

"No, miss. Dobby is being told not to tell of his masters' plans, nor of who they is, nor of what may happen to students, including Mary Potter, if they is to come to Hogwarts."

Dobby squeaked again, trying to buck off his captors.

"What is Miss Mary wantings we Hogwarts elves to have done with the _tweelkari_ intruder?" the large elf asked, as he balanced himself again on top of Dobby.

"Can you just make sure he leaves and can't come back?"

"Of course, Miss!" The three elves holding Dobby vanished with a crack, taking their prisoner with them.

"They is taking him to the elf-hub of the wards," Cammy explained. "He will be marked so that he cans not enter without a Hogwarts elf for safety. And no Hogwarts elf will let _tweelkari_ elf into castle. Bes not safe."

"Oh. Thank you, Cammy. And please thank your friends for me." Mary hesitated. "What is a twilk? Is it a curse word?"

The elf shook her head violently. "No, miss Mary. Tweelks is very bad elf sickness. Makes good elveses become bad elveses who hateses theys families."

Mary took a moment to struggle through that sentence. "So… Dobby, that elf, he was mad? Insane?"

"Is it madness to risk death, and safety of all other elveses for _freedom_?" Cammy said 'freedom' as though it was a dirty word.

Mary had to consider this for a moment, given that she herself was a proponent of freedom. She knew the elves weren't though, on the whole. It was one of the things Hermione found offputting about Cammy. "Well," she hedged, "his family, the Malfoys, they sound pretty awful. He showed up at the Grangers' house over the summer, and he had to twist his ears and slam his head on the ground every time he even thought something bad about them. And he said he was trying to help me, not get free of them."

The elf shook her head slowly. "Snake-house founder would be so disappointed with Miss Mary."

"What?" Mary must have heard that wrong. Surely Cammy did not just say that Mary was being un-Slytherin. But it seemed she had.

Cammy gave her a pitying look. "Miss Mary is havings be tricked. Why bes Miss Mary trusting strange elf? Shoulds Miss Mary bes trusting any old wizard on the street?" As Mary shook her head, baffled, the elf continued. "Of course not! And why shoulds elveses be different? Bad elf Dobby wantses to save Mary Potter, yes, so Mary Potter would be owings bad elf a debt, and would be findings a way for to free bad elf!"

"But why shouldn't he be freed? He clearly hates them. And they're horrible to him. Even his pillowcase is horrible. He said he would have to iron his fingers! Stick his ears in the oven door!"

"Yes, _Dobby says_. Is not beings reasons for Dobby to tell Miss Mary true things. Dobby is not elf of House Potter."

Mary considered this, recalling how easily the elf had deceived his master on the train. "But what about when he punished himself in front of me?"

"Oh miss," the elf squeaked with a giggle. "Elveses is as much more stronger and less can be hurt than wizards as wizards is to muggles! For to twist earses is nothing. Is punishment of babes who is speakings out of turn."

"And the pillowcase?"

"Is miss truly thinking that Lord of House Malfoy is wantings any elf out to be seed in _that_? Is looking bad for Malfoy. Bad elf is wearings tatty rags of uniform to spite masters. Is wantings… _clothes_ ," she said, whispering the last word conspiratorially.

Mary shook her head. She wasn't really sure why, but she suddenly felt as though everything she knew about the world had been turned upside down. Elves were so… nice, and helpful, and _innocent…_ or at least that's how they seemed. A sneaky elf who was trying to get fired seemed like it should be a contradiction in terms. "So wait, let me get this straight. Dobby has been lying and trying to 'save' my life so I will help him get freedom. He's also doing things like embarrassing the Malfoys in public in the hopes that they will free him, just to get rid of him. And this means he must be mad?" Cammy nodded. "But why is it mad to want his freedom?"

Cammy gave a very large sigh for such a small creature. "Elves's magic be not like other creatures. Elveses has too much magic. Without the ties of houses, elves…" the elf hesitated for a long moment before continuing, "elves can be blowed up, by theys own magic," she finally whispered. "Is called _estimin_ ," she added with a fearful squeak. "Is worst fate of elf. Elveses is needings to bind magics to house and wizards for keepings magic busy."

This was something Mary had never thought to ask before. It had simply never come up. She knew the elves were more or less slaves, but they didn't normally seem to want to talk about it. She was beginning to feel a headache coming on as she delved further into the twilight zone of elf-logic. "So you… you bind yourselves to families, to houses… specifically so that you _can't_ use all your magic? Because that means you won't have enough magic to accidentally kill yourselves. Okay. But… What if your masters are cruel to you? For real, I mean, not like Dobby."

Cammy shrugged. "If bond is true, masters cans not be hurtings elveses, or elveses cans be hurting masters. And is easier for elveses to hurt masters than for masters to hurt elveses. Good elf will not break bond with house or hurt masters, even if masters is cruel, for worst fate of elf is _worse_."

Mary considered this for a long moment. "So most elves don't want to be free, because they are more afraid of their magic than their masters?"

"Most masters is good wizards, and is kind to elves. Elves and wizards are good for wizards and elves. Is terrible threat, to free an elf. Is terrible too, to force elf to hurt masters. Is only happenings once every two or three hundreds of years. But this is sad subject. Miss must bes tellings Cammy about Missy's summer, and classes and friends."

Mary sighed in turn. She wasn't sure what to think about all this, but the abrupt change of subject was nothing if not a strong hint that Cammy didn't want to talk about it anymore, so she did not insist. She suspected it would be better if she could think about these revelations about the elves before she asked more questions, anyway. "Have you had a chance to talk to Hermione this year? Her mum wanted her to ask about elf magic and wards after, well, Dobby kind of just popped in."

Cammy nodded with a smile. "Cammy is tellings Missy Granger that elves can protect against all other elves, but is difficult if they is not beings bound to the House. When Missy Granger is growed up, she cans bind an elf to the House Granger, and then is no problem to keep other elves away. But is very tricky until then. Elves's magic be not like wizards magic, and is tricky for wizards's to block."

Mary grimaced. Somehow she didn't think Emma would be pleased with that answer. "I don't suppose an elf could bind itself to a muggle family?"

Cammy shook her head violently. "No, Miss Mary. Elves is needings to bind our magics to serve that of _wizards_. Is not workings with muggles. They is not havings enough magic to keep elves's magic controlled."

Mary very much wanted to ask what the elf meant when she said that muggles didn't have _enough_ magic, but before she could, the elf changed the subject again.

"Was Missy Hermione likings elf Mitsy's cake?"

Mary smiled and settled into catching the little elf up as she had promised to do before Hermione's birthday, and passing along her compliments on both the cake and the Halloween Feast. It was a welcome distraction to the ongoing pain in Mary's arm.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

They were still up talking at five in the morning (and never got back to the topic of whether and how muggles had any magic at all), when the sound of footsteps came down the passageway. Cammy vanished with a pop, saying that she had duties in the kitchens to attend to anyway, and leaving Mary to pretend to sleep as the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall came slowly into the ward, carrying what looked like a statue between them.

They laid it on a bed as Madam Pomfrey appeared, pulling a cardigan over her nightdress.

"What happened?" she whispered to Dumbledore, examining the statue.

"Another attack," the Headmaster said. "Minerva found him on the stairs."

"I can't think what he was doing out so early," she said. "Unless he was hoping to sneak up to speak with Miss Potter about that scene at breakfast."

Mary gave up all pretense of sleeping at that point and sat up to see what had happened.

"Go back to sleep, Miss Potter," the matron said firmly, drawing the curtains closed around them. But it was too late. Mary had already seen the unmistakable figure of Colin Creevey, face half-hidden as usual behind an upraised camera.

"You don't think he managed to get a picture of his attacker?" Professor McGonagall asked eagerly.

There was a wretched smell of burnt plastic, and then Madam Pomfrey said, "Melted… all melted…"

"What does this mean, Albus?" the Professor asked.

There was a long moment of silence before the Headmaster responded. "It means," he said finally, "that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again."

"But, Albus… surely… who?" the professor protested.

"The question is not who," Dumbledore said softly, "but _how_."

And with that, the three adults left the hospital wing. Mary fell, finally, into a fitful and restless sleep, filled with statues and accusing stares.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Mary woke late on Sunday morning, to find her tiny curtain-cubicle filled with people – Lilian, Hermione, and Fred and George had all crowded in. One of the boys was stealing the bacon from her breakfast tray.

"Hey! Stop that!" she complained.

"It's nearly eleven, you had your chance," he responded, but passed her the plate.

Her right arm appeared to be in proper working order – only a bit stiff. She seemed to recall having been woken up at some point to move it for the matron, before going back to sleep, exhausted after the match, the ordeal with the house elves, and her nightmares about angry, petrified people.

"Glad you're up," the other twin said. Mary really wished she could tell them apart.

"Guess what I've got!" Hermione said, pulling an enormous old book out of her bag. "It's Moste Potent Potions! We heard about Creevey, and decided we shouldn't wait."

"You mean _you_ decided," Lilian glared at her from across Mary's bed. "I still think this is a terrible idea."

Mary speared a cold bit of potato. "Snape's interrogating all the Slytherins. What we really need is a way to question everyone else," she insisted, siding with Lilian.

"We could use the potion more than once," Hermione suggested.

"What _is_ it with you and this potion?" Lilian asked, exasperated.

"I just think we need to be doing _something_ ," Hermione insisted.

The twins, who were flipping through the book and making faces at each other (which Mary found a bit worrying), suddenly stopped. "What about this?" they asked together, turning the book to display a recipe.

 _Veritaserum_ , the page read, _moste potent of truthe potions._

Hermione nibbled her lip thoughtfully, then reached out to take the book back, skimming the instructions carefully. "Well…" she said slowly, "I think it might be more dangerous, on the whole… but we could manage it, if we had space. And some of these ingredients will be hard to come by. But I think we could do it."

"We'll take care of the ingredients and space," one of the twins said.

"And we can split up the task of questioning everyone," the other offered.

"We're going to need more help," Mary sighed.

"I talked to Morgana yesterday," Lilian offered. Apparently she thought this had more potential than the Polyjuice Plan, and Mary had to agree. "She says she and her crew will help you with whatever you need. In her words, anything for the Heir of Slytherin." The girl smirked as Mary rolled her eyes.

"Maybe _not_ the best idea to say that ten feet from the latest victim, Lils?"

Lilian flushed as the boys laughed at her. Hermione was too distracted by the potions text to notice.

Their laughter brought Madam Pomfrey to Mary's cubicle, and her friends were shooed away. Mary was glad, if not to see them go, then at least to see the back of their mad plans to drug the entire school, even if it was only a momentary respite.

[A/N: rant Fuck house elves. I re-wrote this chapter multiple times, and I'm still not happy with the elves. /rant]


	10. Consequences of Confirmation

**Chapter 9: Consequences of Confirmation**

[In which everyone is finally convinced that there is a monster on the loose, and our heroines attempt to do something about it.]

Sunday, 8 November – Friday, 11 December 1992 Hogwarts

The only good thing, Mary thought, about the petrification of Colin Creevey, was that Slytherin House seemed willing to set aside its petty argument about whether their founder had been a pureblood in light of the attacks. No one could deny that something was going on, now, and it was bigger than a prank.

The bad things about the latest attack were more numerous. For one thing, even some of the denser Slytherins were giving Mary shifty looks, because she had had a very public argument with Creevey and dragged him up to the High Table just the morning before he was petrified. These increased (along with the antagonism of the rest of the school) as November wore on, despite the fact that she had been in the Hospital Wing at the time of the attack, re-growing her right arm. For another, no one seemed to believe that she was just as angry about the attack as anyone else. Yes, it got Creepy Creevey off her back, but someone was essentially attacking people _in her name_ , since the entire House of Slytherin had apparently come to the conclusion that she was, in fact, _an_ heir of Slytherin, if not _the_ Heir. Never mind that her mother was well-known for being a muggleborn, and the Potters hadn't had a parselmouth in seventeen generations – Mary _must_ be related to Slytherin somehow. And to top it all off, Hermione and the twins were determined to see their Veritaserum Plan through. Lilian was on board, as well, and even Mary could see the appeal in wanting to do _something_. She wasn't entirely convinced that brewing an incredibly illegal potion and slipping it to every student in the school was the _best_ plan, but it was, admittedly, better than just waiting for the Heir to strike again.

They wasted no time putting their plan into action. The twins, apparently, had taken care of finding a lab space which they and Hermione deemed private enough for their purposes, and gathering equipment.

On the morning of Tuesday the tenth, the night of the full moon, Mary and Lilian were informed that their presence would be required in the Senior Woods, to help Hermione summon a unicorn and petition it for a few drops of its blood, willingly shed. The Slytherins reported, as ordered, slipping out of the castle for the first time all term to meet their Ravenclaw friend in the clearing where the Samhain Revel should have been held. Hermione had brought an incantation, copied out on a scrap of parchment. No matter how Mary and Lilian asked, she wouldn't tell them where she had found it, which made them think it couldn't be anywhere good.

The older girl quickly explained, now that they were away from listening ears of the Castle, that they needed three virgins, the younger the better, to read the spell three times beneath the light of the full moon to summon the unicorn. When it appeared, it would test their purity of heart, and read their intentions from their minds. If they were innocents, and their motives pure, it would shed its blood willingly for them. If not, they would have to find another plan. Mary half-hoped that they would be rejected.

Hermione explained the pronunciation – the spell was Greek, a language they did not often use in class – and they chanted the words together three times. After what seemed like a very long time, but was probably not more than a few minutes, a unicorn stepped gracefully out of the trees.

Mary had seen a unicorn before, but dead from Quirrellmort's attack. It had been beautiful, but broken, and the saddest thing she had ever seen. The live one was like grace and moonlight made solid. Its body was more like a deer than a horse, and it stepped deliberately, each motion flawlessly smooth. It approached them slowly, and Lilian held a hand out, which it ignored. They didn't dare try to touch it.

It arched its neck delicately and laid the point of its horn directly over each of their hearts in turn, sharp and deadly. In the moment of contact, they knew that, had they been found unworthy, it surely would have run them through. It drew only a few drops of blood from each of them, however, before slicing open its own flank and allowing them to collect rather more of the silvery-blue liquid than they needed. The plan would, it seemed, go forward.

They watched reverently as picked its way back into the forest, its perfection somehow unmarred by the wound, which glimmered in the moonlight. Mary would have been angrier at Hermione for dragging her into a life-threatening situation if the situation as a whole hadn't been so incredible and surreal. A unicorn. They had been touched and found worthy by a _wild unicorn._

In Lilian's words, magic was so awesome.

Over the next several weeks, in stolen moments away from curious listeners, between classes and the ever-present Quidditch practice, Hermione filled Lilian and Mary (who, as Slytherins, were far more closely watched by the rest of the school) in on their progress. They had procured all of the easy ingredients and made an alliance with Morgana and her friends to obtain the rarer (and illegal) ones.

Veritaserum was a multi-stage potion. Its production required the production of three other potions (all of which were finicky, and one of which was illegal all by itself), which would be used as ingredients in the final product. (The antidote was not much simpler.) Then the brew had to be distilled into its final form and allowed to mature for weeks to reach full potency. It had taken a full week to complete the first step of brewing process, successfully managing the first component potion, but they were now ready to begin the second and third.

The next update was somewhat different: When they weren't brewing or gathering ingredients, Hermione and Aerin had been scouring the stacks looking for any sort of monster that could live as long as Slytherin's infamous creature, just in case there was any truth in that myth. They wanted to know if Mary had any suggestions. She didn't, though Lilian had sarcastically suggested they focus on snakes, seeing as it _was_ Slytherin.

After the November Hogsmeade weekend, Hermione reported that Morgana's crew had acquired the most difficult ingredients (aside from the unicorn blood) – Morgana had sneaked off to Knockturn Alley to steal a skein of demiguise silk, while Perry and Adrian went on a mission into the Forbidden Forest to fetch two dozen pentaclover flowers. They ran into an acromantula colony – massive, talking spiders – and barely made it out alive.

Exactly two weeks after the unicorn encounter, on the night of the new moon, Mary found herself outside again, this time with Adrian, who was the only other person in the group who could see thestrals, and Lilian, the only person who had run into them in the wild. They were on a much more dangerous mission out to the Forest to fill another vial with blood, this one forcibly taken.

Fortunately, now that Adrian was _well_ aware of the location of the acromantulas, they were able to completely avoid them. A centaur guard interrogated them, briefly, inquiring as to their purpose in the Forest, but he let them go after Adrian explained that they meant no harm to his people and were simply passing through on a mission to the thestrals. The centaur told them that Saturn was growing bright. Mary promised to pass that message along to someone who might understand it. (Hermione later informed her that Saturn was the titan associated with periodic renewal, dissolution, and liberation, but also time and plenty and peace. It was not nearly so simple as the hint about Mars and war, but altogether more promising.)

On reaching the area Lilian remembered, the mission proceeded smoothly. They subdued the creature with little effort, luring it in with scraps of raw meat from the kitchens and binding it with the Incarcerating Hex, but it struggled and snapped at them even as they cut its haunch, using the Siphoning Spell to collect the spilled blood from its pebbled skin. It was not until they tried to release it that they encountered a real problem: The irate creature chased them all the way to the edge of the forest, snapping at them with its great sharp teeth and batting at them with its wings when there was space. The vicious bite on her shoulder rather settled Mary's guilt over the whole thing. Fortunately, it healed cleanly and she did not need to visit Madam Pomfrey, though it did leave a scar, much like the small cut over her heart from the unicorn's horn.

The rest of that week was relatively uneventful, at least for Mary: The twins had been experimenting, and had discovered a way to cover their tracks, so no one would know they had been questioned. It involved stunning their victims, interrogating them with the truth serum and giving them the antidote before forcing a Befuddlement Draught and a sleeping potion on them (which would essentially muddle the last half-hour of their memories), and then a combination of levitation and reviving charms to get them back on their feet discretely. Perry and Adrian had written a list of questions to ask every person in the castle, based on the questions Professor Snape was asking the older Slytherins, and Hermione had refined it to close all the loopholes she could see. She passed it to Mary and Lilian in the library one evening, and they added several questions of their own.

In the last week of November, Aerin reported that they had narrowed down the creature in the Chamber, assuming it was only one creature, and not a breeding population, to a basilisk, a gorgon, or a temorral. Of these, the gorgon was the best fit, because it was the only one that petrified its victims, but it was also the most intelligent, and least likely to stay cooped up under a castle for a millennium. A basilisk was their second-best guess. Both the basilisk and the temorral were snakes, but the basilisk was far more intelligent and could feed on ambient magic as well as or instead of a physical food source. The temorral required real food, and if it was leaving the Chamber to hunt, surely someone would have noticed it in the last several centuries? Plus the temorral was a rather small snake, no more than two meters in length, which made it a rather sorry prospect as the 'monster' when compared to the so-called King of Serpents, which continued to grow for their entire lives.

The only problem with the basilisk was that they were supposed to kill with a glance, not petrify. Aerin dismissed this, though, because the creatures were so little studied. The only thing the references they found really agreed on was that they could be killed by the crowing of a rooster (which would explain why Hagrid had been complaining to Aerin about having to replace his cockerel earlier in the term), and had the most venomous bite known to wizards. The only known antidote to basilisk venom was freshly-shed phoenix tears, and Mary didn't want to think about how that particular discovery must have been made. Everything else, up to and including where they came from, was up for debate: they might be hatched from a chicken's egg by a toad; created in some dark ritual involving a parselmouth and the sacrifice of scores of other snakes or through the modification of some already-living viper; or perhaps even have evolved naturally in Southern India. It was also unclear why its gaze would be so deadly, especially since they apparently didn't need to kill for food, and had no known predators.

After much discussion, the group concluded that if there _was_ a monster, it was _probably_ a basilisk, regardless of the minor inconsistencies, but they would wait and see if they could find more evidence before they started spreading the word. The fourth-years began practicing transfiguring roosters, just in case.

Another week, and the second and third component potions were ready.

Finally, on the last day of November, Hermione and the twins began the first steps of the second stage – actually creating the Veritaserum itself (and the antidote, of course, which was apparently created from the remains of the penultimate step of the truth serum). The brewing, which required several very long simmering periods, would take a full two weeks, but they would be easier weeks than those of collecting the ingredients.

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At the end of the first week of December, a new notice appeared in the Common Room: A new club was to be formed, its first meeting set for eight o'clock on the following Thursday. Mary and Lilian, free for the moment of any responsibilities to the Veritaserum project (which had taken up a fantastic amount of free time in the month of November), decided that they would go, though Hermione declined, citing a crucial step in the brewing process. They nodded understandingly, feeling a bit sorry for her – after all, who _wouldn't_ want to attend a Dueling Club?

On Thursday evening, Mary and Lilian arrived in the Great Hall to find that the dining tables had vanished, and a golden stage had been placed along one of the long walls. Most of the school seemed to be present, milling around, wands out.

"Have you heard who's supposed to be in charge of this?" Lilian asked.

Mary realized belatedly that she hadn't. "Flitwick, maybe? He used to duel, right?"

"Oooh, that's right! I hope it is him!" Lilian said, just in time for her hopes to be dashed, as a plum-robed Gilderoy Lockhart swanned his way onto the stage. "Never mind," she groaned.

"No wait," Blaise pointed out, materializing from the crowd with Daphne and Theo. "Professor Snape's joining him, look!"

"Ha!" Mary exclaimed. "Maybe it will be good, after all." All the Slytherins were aware of Professor Snape's reputation, and none of the former Death Eaters were poor duelists – if they had been, they would have been dead.

The 'professor' waved an arm for silence. "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent! Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions – for full details, see my published works.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," Lockhart continued, flashing a wide smile. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself, and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry – You'll still have your potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

Professor Snape was giving Lockhart a class-A sneer. Mary looked around. Every Slytherin in sight, and most of the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors as well, looked delighted at the prospect of seeing Lockhart publically humiliated. A few Ravenclaw and Gryffindor upperclassmen girls, along with most of the Hufflepuffs, looked somewhat concerned for the ponce's safety.

The two teachers turned to face each other and bowed. Lockhart's was, like the man himself, flamboyant, with much twirling of hands. Professor Snape simply nodded, his irritation clear. They raised their wands like swords before them, in what Lockhart called "the accepted combative position" and on Lockhart's count of three, Professor Snape blasted him across the room and into a wall with a grossly overpowered Disarming Charm.

Mary and Lilian joined their cohort in cheering for their Head of House.

The shaken celebrity rose unsteadily to his feet, hair standing on end as though he had been electrocuted. He babbled something about how he could totally have taken on Professor Snape if he had wanted to, and retrieved his wand from a Gryffindor girl who rather looked like she wanted to keep it.

"Enough demonstrating!" Lockhart announced, diving into the crowd and matching up partners. Mary and Lilian paired off, as did Blaise and Daphne. Theo was stuck with Millicent. Crabbe and Goyle were matched with each other, and Pansy with Tracy. This left Draco, of all people, as the odd man out. Snape raised an eyebrow at him as he suggested, "Mr. Malfoy, with Mr. Weasley." Draco smiled broadly as Ron blanched.

"Face your partners!" Lockhart called, "And bow!"

The Slytherins nodded politely at their partners, not looking away from their wand-hands.

"Wands at the ready! When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents – only to disarm them – we don't want any accidents." The 'professor' conveniently ignored that none of them had been taught the Disarming Charm officially, or at least not in this Dueling Club. Mary supposed many of the older students might have covered it in DADA or Charms. "One… two… three!"

The instruction to disarm was, therefore, promptly ignored. Mary dodged Lilian's stunner, and shot a Silencing Charm at her friend. Lilian blocked it and returned a Stinging Hex. Mary blocked that in return, and sent a Tongue-Sticking Jinx to follow it. Lilian dodged.

"I said disarm only!" Lockhart shouted "Stop! Stop!"

It was at that point that Professor Snape took over, cancelling all the spells in progress with a massive Finishing Charm. Mary looked around to see that there was a greenish haze over the room, and Millicent and Theo were trying to disentangle themselves from a muggle-style wrestling match. One of his feet seemed to be stuck in her pocket. The Little Weasel was on the ground, struggling to sit up, and Draco looked bored.

Lockhart was fluttering around, looking concerned. "I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells," he said. Mary prepared to tune out for this. Catherine had taught her the Basic Shield Charm over the summer. As far as she could tell, all of the other second-year Slytherins knew it, too, though they'd never covered it in class. "Let's have a volunteer pair – Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you?"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," Professor Snape objected. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchley up to the Hospital Wing in a matchbox." Mary could just make out Neville going very red through the crowd. "How about Malfoy and Weasley?" It wasn't really a question. Draco nodded and headed for the stage, the red-head trailing behind him reluctantly.

Lockhart attempted to demonstrate a complex wand-movement to Weasley, which was not at all the proper movement for a Shield Charm, and dropped his wand. Professor Snape whispered something to Draco, who smirked.

"Just do what I did, Weasley!" Lockhart said merrily, cuffing the tall boy's shoulder.

"What, drop my wand?" Ron asked, very loudly.

Lockhart ignored him as the crowd tittered. "One, two, three, go!" he shouted.

Malfoy immediately conjured a snake, a black adder, Mary thought, poised and ready to strike.

Weasley looked like he was about to piss himself. Even if he had managed a shield spell, it wouldn't have stopped the conjured snake.

The crowd was screaming and pushing away, leaving Mary suddenly much closer to the stage.

"Don't move, Weasley," Snape said lazily. "I'll get rid of it."

"Allow me!" Lockhart barged in. He brandished his wand at the snake, and it flew through the air with a loud bang, falling back to the floor with a loud smack. It slithered toward the nearest student, an unlucky Justin Finch-Fletchley, furious and ready to strike again.

 _Stop!_ Mary called, rather desperately. _Leave the younglings! They will not hurt you!_

The snake, clearly curious, let itself fall back to the floor, staring intently at Mary. _Speaker?_ it asked, uncertainly.

Before Mary could answer, however, Professor Snape vanished it with a puff of black smoke.

"What do you think you're playing at?" Finch-Fletchley shouted, and stormed out of the hall before Mary could explain.

"Saving your life, git," she grumbled under her breath as Lockhart awkwardly dismissed them all, the club a total failure. Though she did not say it aloud, she did rather wonder if it was possible for this situation to get any worse.

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The following day, Mary realized that it could always, in fact, get worse. The Hufflepuffs, who, before, had only been pretending that she didn't exist, shifted gears to actively insulting her and baiting her, much like the Gryffindors. This didn't seem especially smart – if she _was_ the one attacking everyone, _she_ wouldn't have wanted to piss her off, but, as Lilian pointed out, they _were_ Hufflepuffs, not Ravenclaws.

Mary spent most of the day grumbling about so-called Hufflepuff friendliness, anyway.

During their free period, while Mary was working on her last transfiguration essay of the term, Lilian appeared with a message from Hermione, via Aerin. Apparently they needed to venture into Gryffindor territory and remind the twins that they had agreed to build her a distillation apparatus by the end of the week, and it was already Friday. Why Hermione, or even Aerin could not do this themselves was never explained. Mary half-suspected that it was just an excuse to give her something to do other than brood over stupid Hufflepuffs.

She heaved a sigh, making it clear that this was a terrible imposition on her plans of hiding in Slytherin all afternoon, and followed Lilian out of the dungeons.

They were almost immediately intercepted by Hagrid, who was stomping into the Entry Hall wearing an enormous, snow-covered balaclava and swinging a dead rooster idly in a gloved hand.

"All right, Hagrid?" Lilian greeted him. Mary was still reluctant to associate with him after the idiocy he had displayed in their first year. She waved.

"Hullo, girls! Why aren't yeh in class?"

"Free period," Lilian explained. "How's the weather?" she added with a cheeky grin.

They had been weathering a blizzard all day. The upper floors of the castle were dreadfully cold and drafty, and there had been no light from any of the windows all day. It was part of the reason Mary had decided to lounge around in Slytherin: the second dungeon level was always comfortable, blizzard or no blizzard.

"Mite chilly a' tha'," the giant said, his eyes crinkling in a grin. "Thoug' I'd come up an' talk ter the 'eadmaster abou' this," he added, holding up the limp rooster. "Secon' one killed this term. It's either a Blood-Suckin' Bugbear, or foxes, an' I need 'is permission ter charm the coop either way."

The girls made noncommittal noises and continued up the stairs ahead of the enormous man, who was almost immediately waylaid by one of the older Gryffindors, who was saying something about the Care of Magical Creatures professor retiring at the end of the year.

They were halfway down the second-floor corridor when Mary tripped over something heavy lying in the middle of the corridor. Lilian, who just barely avoided the same fate, helped her to her feet, ignoring her swearing about idiots leaving powers-knew-what lying around. This particular passage was darker than most – the torches had been blown out by a particularly strong draft, and so it took them several seconds to realize what they were looking at.

It seemed to hit them at the same moment, because they turned to each other with identical looks of shock. Mary said, "Bugger," just as Lilian said "Shite."

Justin Finch-Fletchley was lying on the floor, rigid and cold, a look of fear frozen on his face, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The Gryffindor ghost, de Mimsy-Porpington, was hovering beside him, horizontally, six inches from the floor, black and smoky-looking, instead of pearly-white and transparent. His head had fallen half-way off, and his expression was identical to Finch-Fletchley's. Lilian reached out to poke the fallen ghost, but Mary grabbed her hand.

"Don't bollox up the evidence, Lils!" she said. Not that she knew what the 'evidence' would be good for, but they still oughtn't be poking at it. It was bad enough she'd tripped over the boy. Was the ghost _dead_? Again?

"Do you think we should tell someone?" Lilian asked, clearly frightened.

"We have to, don't we?"

Before they could reach a decision, however, Peeves the Poltergeist came shooting out of a nearby door with a bang.

"Why it's potty wee Potter!" he cackled, "And little loony Moony! What's the snakelings up to? Why's snakelings lurking?"

He stopped, halfway through a mid-air somersault. Upside down, he spotted the two petrified (dead? Re-dead?) victims, and before either of the girls could say anything, he sounded the alarm, screaming the attack at the top of his lungs.


	11. Interrogations (Winter Hols 1 of 3)

**[A/N: Chapter 10 is really long (~18k words) so it's been split up into three chapters]**

* * *

 **Chapter 10: Interrogations**

[In which the repercussions of the second (or third) attack are felt, and life goes on (including plots).]

Friday, 11 December 1992 Hogwarts

When Justin and Nearly-Headless Nick were petrified, things suddenly became serious. It was one thing for _students_ to be attacked by some unknown creature at the direction of an unknown assailant, but the very fact that it was even capable of harming a ghost, whatever it was, had everyone on edge.

For example, before that point, Mary was fairly certain that she hadn't been seriously considered a suspect by anyone who mattered, even given her parsel-speaking abilities and implied claim to Slytherin ancestry, because she was nowhere near the scene of the crimes on Halloween or after the first Quidditch match (and had the witnesses to prove it). She had been tried and condemned in the court of public opinion, but only the students had really believed it, and even then, it wasn't much worse than after she first outed herself as a parselmouth. It was certainly not as bad as the hazing _before_ she had brought that particular talent to light.

Now, however, the authorities were clearly getting desperate for a scapegoat. Mary could think of no other explanation for the sequence of events that followed.

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Professor McGonagall, whose office was closest, was the first adult to arrive, just in time to see Ernie Macmillan point at Mary and exclaim dramatically, "Caught in the act!"

"That will do, Macmillan!" Professor McGonagall snapped at the white-faced Hufflepuff.

Peeves was still floating around the ceiling, watching the concerned chaos beneath him, and taunting Mary with his sing-song rhymes. "Oh, Potter, you rotter, oh, what have you done. You're killing off students, you think it's good fun."

"That's enough, Peeves!" He zoomed away from the irate Deputy Head, and she continued organizing the evacuation of the victims.

Mary glared at the retreating poltergeist and muttered to Lilian, "If it were me, I'd have done in Peeves first."

"Yes, well, if it were you, I expect you'd have done in all of Hufflepuff around Halloween," Lilian pointed out, rolling her eyes.

Mary smirked, Lilian's sarcasm overcoming her shock. "Clearly I'm working on it… one ungrateful little badger at a time."

"Miss Potter," the Professor said, as Macmillan fanned the blackened ghost toward the Hospital Wing, "Please accompany me to the Headmaster's office." The girls exchanged a look, and both began to follow the transfiguration professor. "Miss Moon, you may return to your common room," the older witch snapped.

"Umm… no offense, Professor McGonagall," Lilian said, offence clearly intended, by her tone if not her words, "but I'm not planning to let Liz out of my sight. She needs witnesses around, in case she gets jumped by Hufflepuffs on her way back or something." She grabbed Mary's hand and refused to let go.

Professor McGonagall looked very much like she wanted to roll her eyes at the Slytherins, and was only able to refrain through an act of extreme professionalism. "Let's go," she said. "The Headmaster will want to talk to you."

They followed along quietly, Mary resisting the urge to say something snarky to Lilian about how they couldn't possibly just be suspecting her _now_ , and Lilian undoubtedly keeping her tongue over any number of equally sarcastic barbs. After a few minutes, they arrived in an out-of-the-way corridor, with a statue of a large and extremely ugly gargoyle.

"Lemon drop!" the Professor said, and the statue sprang aside as the wall split open to reveal a moving spiral staircase. The three visitors stepped onto it, and rode to the top, where they were met with an oak door and a brass, griffin-shaped knocker. The Professor knocked twice, and the door opened silently. She told the girls to wait, and disappeared back into the stairwell.

The Headmaster's office was a beautiful, circular room, full of funny little noises and curious silver instruments. Most of these sat on spindly little tables, whirring and giving off puffs of smoke. The walls were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, snoozing gently in their frames. There was an enormous, claw-footed desk, and on a shelf behind it, along with several mouldering old books, was a shabby, tattered wizard's hat – the Sorting Hat.

Lilian immediately began inspecting the mysterious instruments nearest them, while Mary, after a moment's hesitation, approached the Hat. Surely it couldn't hurt to see if it had any insight on who the Heir of Slytherin might be? She cast a wary eye at the portraits and Lilian as she reached for it. The other girl gave her a wicked grin and nodded. She clearly thought it was a good idea.

The Hat was still far too large for Mary, and fell down over her eyes. She stared at the inside of it, waiting, until a small voice said, "Bee in your bonnet, Mary Potter?"

"Erm, yes," Mary muttered, "You could say that. Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to ask…"

"If I knew who the mysterious Heir of Slytherin is?"

"Well, yes."

"Ah, now, that it a mystery. I have met many of Slytherin's heirs in my time, but the last to claim that title passed through the school fifty years ago."

"Who was it?" Mary asked irritably.

"That I cannot say, child," the Hat replied fondly.

"Why _not_?"

"What's in your head stays in your head, dear. I can't be telling secrets, and it was a secret, when that child came to me. Others know, now, though. If you ask the right people, in the right way… well, you'll figure it out."

"Fine." She snatched the hat off her head. "Bloody useless bit of old leather! Probably still thinks I ought to have been a Hufflepuff!"

The rip near the seam opened, and the hat replied, loud enough for Lilian to hear, "I stand by that assessment. You would have been happier, there."

"Yes, and Gryffindor would be the easy route, for the destiny the whole thrice-cursed wizarding world thinks I ought to have. But –" Mary's tirade at the hat was cut off.

"Liz, stop arguing with the Hat and come look at this!" Lilian was standing next to a golden perch by the door, looking closely at a decrepit-looking bird that resembled a half-plucked orange turkey. Its eyes were dull, and even as Mary turned to see it, a couple more feathers fell out, and the bird burst into flame.

"Shit! Lils, what did you _do_?"

Lilian laughed at her reaction. "Calm down, Liz, it's a phoenix. It's supposed to do that," she explained, just as the office door opened and Dumbledore strode in, looking very serious.

He took in the scene, then said, "Ah, I see Fawkes has had his burning day, finally," and smiled faintly.

"See," said Lilian, somewhat smugly.

Mary looked closer at the pile of ashes in the golden tray below the perch, to see a tiny, wrinkled, newborn bird poke its head out and look around, blinking sleepily. It was, she thought, quite as ugly as the old one.

Dumbledore seemed to know what she was thinking, as he said, "It's a shame you had to see him on a burning day. He's really very handsome most of the time. Wonderful red and gold plumage. Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry heavy immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and they make highly faithful pets."

"And," Lilian added drily, "they are inherently light creatures, so their presence is uncomfortable for anyone who practices dark magic, and their song is physically painful to Black Mages."

The old man nodded, giving Lilian an evaluating look. Mary wondered why she had tipped her hand at Dumbledore like that. She normally wouldn't tell a professor that she knew more about a subject than they were willing to tell her. She said it made them underestimate her.

Before the conversation could continue, or Dumbledore could change the subject to why, exactly, they were in his office at all, when she couldn't possibly have been the person petrifying students, especially since even the Hat seemed to think the last Heir of Slytherin was now old enough to be a grandfather, the door of the office flew open with an almighty bang. Both Mary and Lilian startled. Hagrid, of all people burst in, a wild look in his eyes, balaclava perched on top of his head, and the dead rooster still in hand.

"It wasn' Mary, Professor Dumbledore!" the giant said urgently. "I was talkin' ter 'er seconds before that kid was found, she never had time, sir!" Dumbledore tried to interrupt, but Hagrid kept ranting on, waving the dead rooster around and sending feathers everywhere. "It can't've been 'er! I'll swear it in front o' the Ministry o' Magic if I have to –"

"Hagrid, I –"

"Yeh've got the wrong girl, sir, I know Mary never –"

"Hagrid! I do not think that Mary attacked those people!"

"Oh." The now-balding rooster fell limply to Hagrid's side, its feathers joining the phoenix's on the floor. "Right. I'll wait outside, then, Headmaster." And the man tromped out, looking embarrassed.

"If you don't think it was me, why am I here?" Mary asked, taking advantage of the sudden silence in the room.

Dumbledore gave the girls a considering look before saying, "I have a question for you. Miss Moon, you may feel free to answer as well, of course."

He paused, possibly only for effect, but Lilian was apparently irritated over having been dragged up here, or possibly over spending the past quarter of an hour thinking her best friend was going to be blamed for the attacks. "What is it?" Her tone was all innocence, but Mary recognized it as the one meaning, 'stop wasting my time, you bloody moron – if I could, I'd hex you where you stand.' It was normally reserved for Draco.

The Headmaster spread his hands in a gesture of openness, and sat behind the heavy desk as he asked, "Simply whether there is anything you would like to tell me, my dears. Anything at all." He addressed the question to Mary, and was trying to maintain eye-contact, but it was made difficult by the fact that there were two of them.

"Not particularly," Lilian said. She sounded a bit angry.

"No, sir," was Mary's response. She was only thinking how entirely odd this day had been. What on earth had the Headmaster expected her to say? Even if she was going to ask for help with a problem, it was hardly likely she would take it to _him_ of all people.

"Very well, girls," the old man said, his eyes twinkling brightly at them. "I do urge you to come to me if you have any questions or information which may be useful in resolving the current crisis."

And with that, they were dismissed. They continued on toward Gryffindor tower, passing Hagrid at the base of the spiral stair (which reversed its direction to let them down).

"What was all that about, do you think?" Mary asked, as soon as they were alone.

"I don't know," Lilian said, her tone dark, "but I think he might have just tried to read our minds. What were you thinking about when he asked if there was anything we wanted to tell him?"

"Just how weird the whole thing was, and how I'd not tell him, even if I did know something. Nothing about anything we've been doing. Wizards can read minds?"

"Some. Mostly the really powerful ones, like the Headmaster and the Dark Lord. It's called Legilimency, and it's kind of not taught anymore, but he's older than dirt, so I wouldn't be surprised. Just don't meet his eyes, if you're trying to hide things from him, or try not to think of anything incriminating."

Mary shivered. It was a little scary to think that anyone could just dip into her mind like that. She didn't think the Headmaster was a particularly evil man, but she still didn't like him, and her thoughts were _private_.

"So what did the Hat say?" Lilian asked after a moment.

"Nothing new. Just that the last Heir came through fifty years ago, which I guess means none of the new students should be? Unless they didn't figure it out until after the sorting, maybe? I don't know. It also said that some people know, now, so we should be able to figure it out if we ask the right people the right questions, but it can't tell secrets."

"I guess that's good," Lilian said. "I mean, that it doesn't just go around telling everyone what's in everyone else's head."

Mary just nodded, hoping that the Hat's reluctance to speak applied to everyone, and not just the Heir of Slytherin. It had definitely gotten a good look around her head at the sorting, and she would bet it had just gotten a second one.

Saturday, 19 December 1992 Hogwarts

The school was decidedly more anxious after the latest attack, and yet life went on. The sign-up sheet to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays went around the same evening. This time, Mary was not alone amongst her friends in signing it. Although most of the school found reasons to go home, all of her fellow conspirators had already found reasons to stay.

Hermione told her parents that she wanted to experience a real Hogwarts Christmas, since she'd heard so much about it from Mary. She told Mary that she didn't want to risk going home and spilling the beans – after last summer, her parents would never let her come back, if they knew someone was trying to kill muggleborns in the school and she'd been hiding it from them.

Lilian told her parents that she'd rather stay with her friends, since she'd hardly seen them over the summer at all, and since Sean was going home with his boyfriend, Mr. and Mrs. Moon decided to take a vacation over the Holiday. Aerin didn't even have to come up with an excuse, as she was informed she could stay at Hogwarts, or at home with only the dogs and the house elves for company.

Fred and George simply owled their mother asking if their Great Aunt Muriel would be attending Christmas dinner, because they had come up with a special gift for her, and all of the Weasley children were invited the next morning to stay at Hogwarts over the holiday. It seemed none of the Weasleys had been stupid enough to tell their mother they were possibly in danger at school, because, as the twins put it, "What she doesn't know," "can't hurt us." "Right! Better petrified," "than dead!"

Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Millicent also decided to stay, though no one knew why. (Aside from the fact that Vinnie and Greg always did whatever Draco did.) Theo and Blaise, as they had the year before, stayed as well. The older Slytherins looked at the second-years a bit sideways, as if they thought the cohort must be up to something, but no one said anything.

Mary was glad most people were leaving, even if she wouldn't have the same quiet break she had the year before. At least the Hufflepuffs were pretty much guaranteed to be gone, as well as most of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, who had been downright hostile since the ghost petrification. They would mutter and point, growling and hissing as she passed, even worse than after the first attack.

Fred and George found this hilarious (as they did most things), and had taken it upon themselves to march ahead of Mary through the halls, announcing the presence of 'the Dark Lady of Slytherin.' Percy had told them off more than once. He wasn't pleased that his mother had decreed that he would have to spend the holidays at school with his brothers. Mary didn't really appreciate it either, but she was more than willing to let the twins have their fun if it meant they would help her when it came time to question everyone about their involvement. Their sister and Draco were even less amused. The latter presumably didn't want them soiling the dignity of the Heir with their antics, and the former just seemed horrified any time she saw them publicly questioning Mary about her next attack or announcing that everyone needed to clear the way, because she was late to tea with the Monster of Slytherin.

Professor Snape finally called the second-years into his office one at a time over the last week of the term. Mary didn't bother asking any of the others what he asked them – she imagined it was much the same, though according to the fourth-years, the upperclassmen had been interrogated more thoroughly. Mary's interview was mercifully short and entirely painless. Professor Snape informed her that he would be using "superficial" legilimency to determine the honesty of her answers. She was slightly disturbed at the idea that he would be reading her mind, but she supposed that would be a fool-proof way to determine whether anyone was the heir or not. And since none of the upperclassmen had raised a fuss about it, she decided it was probably okay. He stared deep into her eyes as he asked whether she was the heir of Slytherin (she wasn't sure, but she leaned toward _no_ , given that the Sorting Hat said the last one came through about fifty years before); whether she had any information on the attacks (It might be a basilisk. That's what the Ravenclaws, think, anyway, and it would make sense, wouldn't it?); and whether she had any information on who was behind the attacks (no, if I did, I would already have told you. Everyone thinks it's me!).

When term finally ended, the Weasleys were the only Gryffindors left in the castle, and there were only two Ravenclaws other than Hermione and Aerin. All of the Hufflepuffs had gone, though that wasn't saying much, since all of them had gone the year before, as well. Professor Snape had informed the Slytherin prefects that the Heir was not anyone in their house, and they had spread the word. Most of the house claimed that they still felt safe enough, but about half of those who had planned on staying left, instead, at the last minute. There were now only half a dozen upperclassmen (and a single abandoned firtsie) in the Snake Pit, including Morgana, Perry, and Adrian, who were in on the Veritaserum Conspiracy.

It was an even greater relief to see off the carriages than it had been the previous year, if only because she would no longer have to put up with the hostility of her classmates. Among the Slytherins who remained, she was pleased to say that she knew them all, at least by sight if not personally, and neither of the unfamiliar Ravenclaws – a waifish blonde first-year and the fifth-year girls' prefect – had been among her most prominent tormentors over the past week. Ron Weasley was likely to be a prat, but that was a small price to pay to have the twins around, and as Draco was also staying behind, there was every chance that the boys would antagonize each other, rather than paying any attention at all to her.

Alexander and Marcus Young and Wendy Madden, all of whom had stayed the year before, were staying this year as well. Alex was a fifth-year, and Marcus and Wendy were in sixth. Marcus had officiated at Mabon, and Wendy had been one of the leaders on the non-Pure side of the "mudblood Slytherin" argument. They didn't share their reasons for staying. The first-year was a girl called Nora Blum, a German-born half-blood who had a habit of keeping to herself, even when most of the school wasn't gone. Aeronwyn Carpenter, who had been the mistress of ceremonies for the Yule ritual the year before, had designated Wendy as the organizer of this year's festivities before she left. She approached the underclassmen before the last thestral-drawn carriage vanished, reminding them that the ritual would be held in the main courtyard on Monday at Sunset.

That same day, after lunch, the Weasley twins dragged their co-conspirators out onto the grounds, ostensibly for the first snowball fight of the season, but really so that Hermione could announce that the Veritaserum was nearly done – it would take two more days to distill it, and then two weeks to reach full strength and create the antidote, but they could test it in the last week of break. If all went well, they would proceed with the plan to question the Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs as soon as they returned from break. Then, of course, the boys absolutely _buried_ the rest of the group with a stealthily levitated snowbank – it was still the Weasley twins, after all.

Saturday afternoon, for Mary and her friends, was spent in the library, where Mary filled Lilian, Aerin, and Hermione in on what she remembered of the Yule preparations from Theo's discussion of it the previous year and Hermione staged a mini-lecture on the Powers based on the book he had lent her. The twins appeared at one point to see what they were all up to, but left quickly when they realized that they were about to be dragged into one of Hermione's lectures. They had, they declared, suffered through too many since the beginning of their association with the second-year girls, and had no intentions of doing so over the holidays. Hermione watched them leave with an almost-Slytherin smirk, then changed the subject to Christmas gifts, and whether they should get anything for the boys and Morgana's crew.

Mary said yes, because she had already arranged for them to be owled a selection of sweets, while Lilian said no, because she would have to make said arrangements on short-notice. Aerin smacked her in the back of the head and told her not to be so self-centered, which rather decided the whole matter.

Later that evening, while Lilian muttered and grumbled her way through the owl-order catalogues in the Slytherin House Library, Mary caught up with Blaise and Theo. This largely consisted of lounging around the common room, writing holiday letters and laughing at Draco and his friends, who had taken over the seats normally held by Miss Carmichael's Court, much as Blaise, Theo, and Mary had the previous year. They had, eventually, decided that there was nothing special about that spot, though Draco clearly hadn't realized it yet.


	12. Yule (Winter Hols 2 of 3)

**[A/N: This is part 2 of Chapter 10]**

* * *

Monday, 21 December 1992 - Yule Hogwarts

The morning of Yule dawned clear, and cold enough to chill even the Slytherin dorms. There was a layer of fresh snow on the ground, and the air in every room but the Great Hall and the Slytherin Commons bit and stabbed at the lungs. Mary ventured out, as she had the previous year, to eat breakfast and claim food for lunch, but before she set off to find a good corner of the castle for meditation, she was forced to return to her rooms for her scarf and outdoor cloak.

She was waylaid in the Common Room by Lilian, who was curled up on a couch in front of the roaring fire with a blanket and a novel.

"Morning, Liz!" she called brightly.

Mary smiled, and returned the holiday greeting. "Well met and glad tidings, Lilian."

"Ooh, right, I forgot. Sorry!" the older girl apologized.

Mary rolled her eyes. She had known that neither Lilian nor Hermione would be likely to remember that Yule was a day of contemplation, and that they weren't meant to be talking to each other. "I'm going for a walk. I'll see you at the ritual, yeah?"

"Sunset, main courtyard. I'll be there." Lilian nodded, and went back to her book.

The brassy-haired witch said nothing as Mary passed by on her way out, though she was certain she caught a smirk at the fact that she was all bundled up just to wander the halls.

As she had the year before, Mary spent a good bit of time wandering aimlessly, seeking a good place to sit and think. Her feet carried her to the same tower she had used the year before, but Professor Snape was already there, and the room was bitterly cold. She exchanged a greeting with him and moved on, wondering what book he was reading.

She peeked into the Great Hall, but Hermione was there, and Malfoy, and she did not want to try to think seriously around either of them. They were both prone to saying sudden and distracting things out of nowhere as their thoughts wandered.

On the fourth floor, she encountered the little blonde Ravenclaw, who quirked her head to the side after exchanging 'well met and glad tidings,' said that snakes should go underground to avoid the cold. She wandered away before Mary could think of a response. She was too disturbed by the fact that the girl was barefoot and wearing only a jumper in the ridiculously frigid corridor.

She did take the strange little girl's advice, though, and headed down to the third-dungeon level, below the Slytherin Common Room, which had maintained its normal equilibrium temperature. She had not done much exploring of the dungeons, because Lilian had been more interested in ways to get in and out of the Castle last time it had come up, and Hermione was not fond of dark, enclosed spaces.

Mary rather liked them – small, dark spaces. As much as she had hated being tossed in a cupboard as punishment as a child, she had become accustomed to it, and the cupboard was one of the few places Dudley, her eternal tormentor (until age eleven) would never follow her. Even Aunt Petunia had called her _out_ of the cupboard to give her chores. It was a safe place, and a good place to think, odd as it sounded. She found a shadowy niche with a bench and a still-life portrait and settled in to reflect, nibbling on the pastries she had commandeered at breakfast.

What had she done in the past year? There was the whole business with Quirrellmort, and Hagrid's dragon. Norbert? Terrible name for a dragon. She had decided to stop speaking to Hagrid, and it had been easier than she expected. She had never had friends before Hogwarts, and she had certainly never _stopped_ being friends with anyone before, so she hadn't really been sure how to go about it. It helped that he hadn't directly invited her around again after the dragon was gone.

She had taken her first-year exams, and passed easily. Hermione had been so worried, and really, if you had stayed awake in class, you were bound to pass. She had spent the summer with the Urquharts, learning how purebloods lived and meeting Catherine, who was probably the nicest person she had met in the wizarding world. For all she was terribly strict when she was teaching, she was absolutely helpful and never refused to tell Mary anything she needed to know. _I should write her a letter_ , Mary thought. She had received her last letter from the older girl the day before, full of news about the little kids and Catherine's progress in Italian (Mary had to admit she had not kept her promise to speak Italian with Blaise, but that was because he was a condescending jerk about her accent), and glad tidings for Yule. She would do it tomorrow, she decided.

Right after last Yule, she had met Remus Lupin, the Last Marauder. He was out of the country again. A cursebreaker friend had asked him to come join their team to raid a particularly well-protected tomb. He had agreed, for a cut of the profits, of course, and had been there from September until just a few weeks ago. His latest letter had come from France, and included an overview of all his Egyptian adventures, where the earlier ones had just had snippets like: "Animated mummies – never again, pup!" and "It's strange, I always thought I would be the one at home, receiving these letters, while James and Sirius were off having adventures and writing them. But then, they were terrible correspondents," and "I'm not dead yet. If you hear otherwise, it is part of a ploy to get out of this thrice-cursed country. Bloody bureaucrats!" She now owed him a nice, long, catching-up letter as well. She hadn't told him about all this Heir of Slytherin nonsense, as she didn't want him to worry about her when his life was in danger, but she felt a bit guilty for hiding it from him.

She had also been avoiding telling Emma and Dan anything important, at Hermione's behest. It was a shame, because she really liked Emma, and was sure the older woman could offer good advice on how to deal with the Hufflepuffs and their vicious attitude problem. But Hermione was worried that they would try to pull her out of school when they found out that things were getting dangerous yet again, and Mary had agreed (against her better judgement) to keep the secret. Even if the older girl hadn't been dealing with the Veritaserum Conspiracy, she would have stayed so her parents couldn't just keep her home after the holidays. They were likely to be _very_ upset when they found out, and Mary didn't know what she would do if they sent Hermione to Beauxbatons or something. It was a persistent worry at the back of her mind. She hoped they wouldn't be too angry at her, and she would at least be allowed to see her friend on the holidays, if worse came to worst.

She had learned more about Lilian's family since last Yule, too, though she still hadn't met the bold Slytherin's parents. From what little she said of them, they did not care even the tiniest bit what their children got up to at school or at home. They never wrote, and they had the house elves find Christmas presents for their children. When they were little, Mrs. Moon had insisted that the children have a tutor to prepare them for Hogwarts, which was where Lilian had learned all the pureblood nonsense, but Aerin's thirteenth birthday ceremony was the only real family thing Lilian could remember them doing together in years. Hermione didn't like to talk about her parents because she thought they were too pushy, always wanting to know more about their daughter's life. Lilian didn't talk about her parents because they effectively didn't exist for her, outside of providing a place to sleep in the summer. She and Aerin had mostly been raised by Sean, and looked after each other. Mary thought this sounded a lot like the way she had grown up, but with fewer chores, and for a few weeks she had envied the other girl intensely, because Lilian had siblings who cared about her. It had taken an incredibly awful Quidditch practice and Lilian standing up to Flint for Mary before she realized that Lilian, and Hermione, too, had become like the sisters she never had.

Since the previous Yule, she had been in danger with her closest friends at least four times, between the dragon smuggling and subsequent detention; the race into the stupid obstacle course after Quirrellmort and Professor Snape; and all the sneaking around they had done to get potions ingredients in November. They had visited her in her Hospital bed… twice off the top of her head – after the Deboning and Quirrellmort.

She supposed she could add those things to the list of things she had done in the past year – she had watched a man die, almost gotten possessed and then seen a real exorcism, and had seen Professor Snape laugh so hard he had to lean against a wall; she had been in the papers over the summer because of That Ponce, and had re-grown her right arm because of him, too, though she had learned a lot about house elves, that night in the hospital, so she wasn't as angry about that as she could be; she had stood up for herself against Creepy Creevey and watched as Professor Sinistra put the Headmaster in his place (she could see why Professor Snape liked her) – though it didn't do much good since he was petrified right after. She had outed herself as a Parselmouth _very_ publically. She was surprised it wasn't already in the papers – Mary Potter – Dark Witch. And then Finch-Fletchley had been petrified, as well. She was beginning to suspect that someone was trying to set her up, though they hadn't done a very good job, if they were. She had an alibi for every attack.

She had been judged worthy by a unicorn, and assaulted a thestral, and gotten involved in a conspiracy which, she suspected, would be in a _lot_ of trouble if they were found out before they could catch the Heir. She probably should have stopped it back in the Hospital Wing when the boys suggested it – she was the one who thought about the consequences! – but she hadn't realized all the implications of the "plan" then, and by the time she did, her weak objections made no difference in the face of Lilian's "Stop freaking out, Liz. We're _twelve_. What are they going to do? Send a bunch of twelve-year-olds to Azkaban?" That was another persistent worry that she couldn't talk to anyone about.

Mary was sure there were more things that had happened – it had been a very long year.

Looking back, she was amazed to see how many of those incidents were related to her friends. She would probably get in a lot less trouble (and that was including the foreseen and impending trouble with the Conspiracy) without them. But, strange as it was, she didn't think she would give them up for anything. They had managed, over the year and a half they had known her, to become a part of her life and who she was. She would just have to deal with the consequences.

A bell tolled somewhere in the castle – five o'clock already? She stretched her legs and back, grown stiff from the stone bench in her nook, and began to make her way back to the main courtyard, to see what the Ritual held for her tonight.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Mary was early this year, but Wendy was already waiting when she arrived, and had set warming charms around the courtyard. It was cold, but not unbearably so. They nodded to one another in greeting, but did not speak. Blaise and Theo were the next to appear, then Hermione and Draco, with a certain distance between them that implied they had not walked in together, but had simply been travelling in the same direction in one another's general vicinity. Professor Snape wafted in after that, followed by Professors Sinistra and Vector, who very clearly _had_ been walking together, as they arrived arm-in-arm. When Lilian arrived, Mary rather stopped paying attention to new arrivals, dragging her friends together so that they would be able to stand beside each other in the circle.

Professor Flitwick was the last to arrive, shoving his watch into his pocket as he hurried into the courtyard. As he bustled in, Wendy called them to order. The circle formed, smaller than the year before. Mary found herself between Theo and Lilian, with Blaise and Draco and the other Slytherin students on the far side of Theo, and Hermione, the twins, and Professor McGonagall beyond Lilian. Ginny and the little fae blonde Ravenclaw had appeared as well, and were set among the other professors across the circle.

"Welcome, friend and allies, children of Hogwarts," she declaimed. "Well met and glad tidings on this, the day of longest night. This evening we gather beneath the falling sun to honor the darkness in its hour of strength, and the memory and expectation of the light it represents. I stand as the witness and Mistress of Ceremonies as we gather to perform the Song of the Waking Dreamer, as proof of the Power of Infernal Mystery."

Mary had never heard of the Waking Dreamer, but as Wendy made her claim, she thought she heard the sound of pipes in the distance, drawing nearer. Professor Snape, who was opposite Mary, raised an eyebrow at their Mistress of Ceremonies, but did not object.

"I stand as the guardian to assure our safe return, by the grace of the Power of Transience."

 _Where are we_ going? Mary wondered. The pipes had been joined by light, high-pitched bells, drawing nearer. Magic was swirling up around each of them, now, tugging at Mary's robes like a tiny whirlwind. It was a pleasant, tingly feeling.

"I stand as the gateway of the Power Solitaire, the axis of the ritual, that all may know what might have been, and in so, know themselves!"

At that, an ethereal voice joined the bells and fluting pipes, singing in a language Mary had never heard before. The magic swirling around her dove into her, but before she could be overwhelmed by its presence, it had gone again, streaming out from her, into Wendy and, she thought, _through_ the older girl, as though it vanished entirely on reaching her. There was just enough time for Mary to wonder what was supposed to happen next before everything went black.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Mary Potter, six years old, woke to the sound of a small elephant – her cousin Dudley – making his way down the stairs which lay on the other side of her cupboard. She had a moment of panic on realizing that she could see a strip of light beneath the door – she had overslept! She was neglecting her chores! Aunt Petunia was going to _kill_ her! But then she remembered that she had been sentenced to a whole week in the cupboard for turning her teacher's wig blue. She honestly had no idea what had happened or how, but regardless, she still had three days to go.

Daytime in the cupboard was always terrible. It got too warm, and the Dursleys were too loud for her to sleep, and she couldn't sneak out for food or to use the bathroom. If she was caught, she would be sentenced to stay there even longer. The only good thing about daytime was the little strip of light under the door: the light bulb had burnt out last week, and, according to Aunt Petunia, turning a teacher's wig blue did not earn her a new one.

She lay on her cot, bored and hungry, trying very hard to focus on nothing at all – especially the fact that she really needed to use the loo – until night fell and she could get out.

When she finally ventured forth from the cupboard, she hid away food, first, and water. Despite her desperate need to use the restroom, she knew that once she had, she needed to be back in her cupboard ASAP. Sometimes Aunt Petunia couldn't sleep, and came to investigate odd noises like the downstairs toilet flushing. On her way back to her cupboard for the final time, at least until the following night, Mary saw something out of place – a box of matches, carelessly left out in the kitchen. Uncle Vernon must have used them for something, because Aunt Petunia would never have left them out, and Dudley wasn't allowed to play with fire, after he had nearly burnt down the Christmas tree last year. Mary, of course, had never been allowed to use a match, but it hardly seemed all that difficult.

She hesitated for only the briefest moment before she snagged the box, desperate for even the short-lived light of a burning match in her cell.

…

Mary might have been delirious, but she thought she could control how high the matches burned, and how long they took to creep down the wood and scorch her fingers. She had lit half the box, now, one at a time, dropping their charred remains in a tiny pile on the floor and waiting, waiting as long as she could, resisting the temptation to light another. At this rate, she would run out long before her punishment was over. But she never lasted very long. The company of the tiny flames was comforting.

She was so tired of living in the dark.

…

She was down to the last five matches when the light of morning crept into her cupboard again. She should have been expecting it, Aunt Petunia's first screech of the day, but it took her by surprise, and she dropped one, lit, in the midst of its fellows. First the other matches, then their box, caught fire more quickly than she thought possible.

At first she tried to pat it out, but it scorched her hands and dodged away, apparently with a life of its own. It started to creep toward her, burning her blankets, and she pushed it away, with her mind and her hands, the same way she had been teasing it earlier. It turned, and, leaving a blackened mark on the floor, slipped out of the cupboard. A minute later, the screaming started – first Aunt Petunia, then Uncle Vernon. Dudley's elephantine steps hurried toward his parents, and then he joined in the shouting.

Five minutes later, Mary was hauled out of the cupboard and dragged into the dining room. Uncle Vernon threw her down into the charred remains of the table, shouting about how he'd beat it out of her, quash the magic right out. Aunt Petunia shrieked when he said 'magic'. Dudley just looked confused, which was his normal expression. Ten minutes after that, she was thrown back into the cupboard dizzy and headachy, bruised from where Dudley had gotten a few licks in, and bleeding where Uncle Vernon's belt buckle had hit when he whipped her. She had tried to defend herself – explaining that she didn't know what had happened – but was quickly reduced to crying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over.

…

The Dursleys' home, never pleasant, had become Mary's own little corner of hell. Her aunt and uncle were afraid of her, and so they hated her. They 'kept her in her place' through isolation and starvation, and whenever anything 'abnormal' happened in her vicinity, she was beaten ferociously. It wasn't long until she lay on her cot at night fantasizing about killing them all, but day after day for five long years, she failed to follow through on any of those plans. They would never have worked, anyway.

When Mary was eleven, or almost eleven, a letter came for her. Uncle Vernon had confiscated it before she could open it. The next day there had been another, and another, then three, then two dozen, and then hundreds, flying through the chimney. Mary snagged one, then, but did not have a chance to read it, as she was forced to watch Uncle Vernon burn the rest, and was never out of Aunt Petunia's sight while they prepared to flee the house. She ran through the rain at a truck stop, popping into the loo to read it, only to find that the old-fashioned ink used to write it had bled and smudged. It was an invitation to a school, Hogwarts School – but that next word couldn't have been _witchcraft_ , could it?

It had been. As the clock struck midnight on her birthday, a giant man had knocked down the door of the hut Uncle Vernon had rented on a rock in the middle of the ocean, and she had finally received the letter. She had agreed to go at once, of course. She couldn't think why the Dursleys would have wanted to _stop_ her going – they would be well shot of each other for the whole year, or near about.

The giant accompanied her to Diagon Alley, a wondrous and bizarre collection of little magical shops, where she visited a bank (she had _money?_ ), got her school supplies and wand, and a brilliant snowy owl, and ran into an absolutely horrid blond boy with a face like a rat, who "kindly" offered to take her under his wing when they got to school. Thankfully his mother had called him away before she was forced to come up with an answer. Then it was back to the Dursleys for one last month of torture – she spent the whole time in "her" bedroom, venturing out only when necessary – and then she was being dropped off at the train station, trunk in hand, with no idea how to get to the platform.

…

She met a boy named Ron, who said she reminded him of his sister, and was terribly impressed when he learned her name. She was sorted into Gryffindor, a knee-jerk response to the fact that Malfoy, the horrid, rat-faced boy, was sorted into Slytherin. She had thought ' _Not Slytherin_ ,' at the Hat, and it had said Gryffindor was second-best for her, but let her go there nevertheless. She was led to a dorm with five other girls. Two of them already knew each other and two others became fast friends that same night, bonding over their exact same nightclothes. Mary was thrown together with the other odd-girl-out, Hermione, who was more than a bit of a swot, and terribly excitable, but better company than her other roommates.

The other students stared at her in the halls, and even her teachers seemed to expect her to be someone she wasn't, this 'Girl Who Lived.' She hated the attention, but it was better – far better – than being at the Dursleys'.

She found herself inexplicably on the Quidditch team after her first flying lesson, much to Hermione's irritation. Hermione _loved_ rules, and she was appalled that Professor McGonagall was breaking them, but she forgave Mary when she explained that none of it was her idea at all – she'd just been trying to embarrass that jerk Malfoy, and had fully expected to get detention, not a place on the house team. She didn't know the first thing about Quidditch, for God's sake. But flying was amazing.

On Halloween, Ron made Hermione cry, and she was alone in a bathroom when a troll got into the castle. Mary forced Ron to help her go find her friend, since it was his fault she was missing in the first place. They ended up fighting the troll and barely escaping, and Ron joined their little group of outcasts.

They solved a mystery together, or thought they had solved it, over the course of the year: Professor Snape was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone, which was being kept on the third floor, for some God-unknown reason. When they followed him down to try to stop him after exams, they realized it was Professor Quirrell all along, and Mary came face-to-incorporeal ghost-thing with what remained of the man who had killed her parents.

…

Despite her best efforts, Mary was returned to the Dursleys over the summer holidays. They had put bars on her window and locks on her door. She languished in solitary confinement for a full month, wondering why neither of her friends had written her. On her birthday, while she was pretending not to exist during Uncle Vernon's important business dinner, a horrifying little creature called a House Elf had levitated a pudding, which resulted in a snotty letter from the ministry, and a beating for Mary. The next week, Hermione had called asking to speak to her, as she had not gotten a response to any of the letters she had sent. Uncle Vernon had shouted over the phone at her for being a freak, and hung up. That weekend, Hermione had turned up on their doorstep with her parents in tow. The Dursleys hadn't let Mary come down, but they hadn't been able to stop the Grangers seeing Mary in her barred window, still bruised and far too thin, waving morosely as they left.

The week after that, Emma Granger had turned up with a woman from Social Services and all the fury of an avenging angel. Mary talked to the lady, and then the police, and was placed in a temporary home for the last two weeks of summer. She gathered later, from Hermione, that furious letters were sent in every direction between her mother, the Ministry, the Headmaster, the Dursleys and, unfortunately for Mary, the newspapers. She was mobbed by the pitying public when she tried to get her school supplies, and resolved to owl-order them from then on.

…

Mary and Ron got trapped in Muggle King's Cross, and Mary let herself be convinced to fly the Weasleys' car to school. Back at Hogwarts, finally, Mary met Ron's little sister, Ginny, who was having trouble making friends in her own year. Aside from earning detentions before they arrived, the term got off to a smooth start. At Halloween, however, on her way back from what she officially considered the Worst Party Ever (seriously, she didn't know why the ghosts even _bothered_ ), she heard an evil voice whispering in the walls that Hermione couldn't hear. The Heir of Slytherin announced his presence, and the school descended into paranoia, which only grew worse when Colin Creevey, a creepy, stalkery first-year Gryffindor got petrified after taking photos of Mary with a broken arm. Somehow, this, along with the knowledge that she had been abused by her muggle relatives, became evidence that Mary was the so-called Heir, and everyone grew uncomfortably wary of her. (This was, of course, patently ridiculous – she was a _Gryffindor_ , and if she was going to attack anyone, it would have been Lockhart the de-boning DADA 'professor'.)

Ron was convinced that Malfoy, the poncy blond idiot… well, the poncy blond _student_ , was behind the attacks. Hermione had come up with a plan to find out for sure, and they had put it into action, brewing Polyjuice potion on the sly. If all went well, they could find out by Christmas if it was Malfoy.

The week before Christmas, everything got even worse, when Malfoy, that utter _arsehole_ , managed to reveal to the entire school that she could talk to snakes – something _she_ hadn't even known she could do. This cemented in everyone's minds that Mary was, in fact, the Heir of Slytherin, never mind that she had an alibi for all of the attacks so far, and no reason to attack Justin or Nearly Headless Nick. She was in a foul mood by the time the holidays arrived, and had taken to wandering the halls at all hours of the day and night, avoiding everyone.

It was on just such an angry, wandering day that she came across some kind of ritual going on in the main courtyard. It looked like mostly Slytherins there, but Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were present as well. She paused, and an older girl called out to her, "Well met and glad tidings! Come join the circle!"

It was the first friendly thing anyone except Hermione and Ron had said to her since the Dueling Club fiasco. She did not hesitate, and joined the circle.

"Welcome, friend and allies, children of Hogwarts," the girl declared a few minutes later. "Well met and glad tidings on this, the day of longest night. This evening we gather beneath the falling sun to honor the darkness in its hour of strength, and the memory and expectation of the light it represents. I stand as the witness and Mistress of Ceremonies as we gather to perform the Song of the Waking Dreamer, as proof of the Power of Infernal Mystery."

Mary had no idea what was going on, but when the Mistress of Ceremonies made her claim, she thought she heard the sound of pipes in the distance, drawing nearer. She looked around the circle for familiar faces, but the only people she knew other than the professors were the Slytherins from her year.

"I stand as the guardian to assure our safe return, by the grace of the Power of Transience."

 _Where are we_ going? Mary wondered. The pipes had been joined by light, high-pitched bells, drawing nearer. Something strange was going on. Magic was swirling up around each of them, now, tugging at Mary's robes like a tiny whirlwind. It was a pleasant, tingly feeling, but it made her nervous.

"I stand as the gateway of the Power Solitaire, the axis of the ritual, that all may know what might have been, and in so, know themselves!"

At that, an ethereal voice joined the bells and fluting pipes, singing in a language Mary had never heard before. The magic swirling around her dove into her, but before she could be overwhelmed by its presence, it had gone again, streaming out from her, into the girl at the center of the circle and, she thought, _through_ the older girl, as though it vanished entirely on reaching her. There was just enough time for Mary to wonder what was supposed to happen next before everything went black.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

The music continued, and Mary opened her eyes as the magic flooded back out of the Mistress of Ceremonies, into each of the celebrants. She looked around at Wendy, Lilian, and Theo, scared and confused. How did she know these people? She looked down at her scarf – Slytherin green. That was wrong… wasn't it?

Two lifetimes of memories warred within her mind as she looked around herself, trying desperately to figure out who she was and what had just happened. Theo looked like he knew, and so did Professor Snape – he hadn't been standing across from her a minute ago, had he? And Hermione ( _Ravenclaw_ Hermione?) hadn't been there, nor the Weasley twins… – but most of the others looked as shaken as Mary felt.

"Wake and welcome, Dreamers," Wendy called. "Know yourselves, know who you might have been. See how a single step may change the course of a life, and reflect this night on choice and chance, who you are and how you came to be. Thanks be to the Powers!"

"Blessings of the Dark," Mary replied along with the others, still utterly confused. Did she mean that they had only dreamed what might have happened? What had she just done?

"We bow before the majesty of the magic!" the Mistress of Ceremonies called again.

"Light of the Light!" was the more ragged answering call. Mary stumbled along with the others, lost in her own thoughts.

"Bow," Theo hissed at her. She did, telling Lilian the same. When everyone had bowed, or at least ducked their heads, the magic burst out of them, flying and scattering, falling to earth like the snow, which had resumed during the ritual. The Song faded away, and the celebrants meandered toward the Great Hall and dinner, quiet and pensieve to a one.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

It was not until late that night, when she wandered into the Common Room, unable to sleep, that Mary spoke to anyone about the other life she had lived in the ritual – Lilian was there, curled up on the same couch she had occupied that morning (so long ago), staring at a smoldering brazier, but clearly not really seeing it. Mary curled up beside her. She couldn't imagine not knowing Lilian.

"Hey, Liz," the older girl said in the most depressed tone Mary had ever heard her use. "Couldn't sleep?"

"No. I keep thinking about the ritual. It was horrible."

"Mine was nice. It was… kind of sad, actually, to come back."

"Really? What happened?"

"I… I spoke to Nott about it," Lilian said hesitantly, still staring into the glowing coals. "He says it's like there's lots of different universes, and the choices we make, and chance and, you know, happenstance, make them all different from each other."

"Okay…" Mary wasn't sure she understood, but then, she hardly ever understood what Theo was talking about. "What does that have to do with the ritual?"

"The ritual, the Infernal Power, he says it took us back to a time when one of our choices fundamentally changed our lives. The closest choice, he said, that would change our lives enough for us to notice a difference, where we still ended up performing that ritual. And it… switched us. The two versions of ourselves. And then we lived our lives from then until the ritual. When we got there, and did the first half of the ritual again, we switched back."

Mary shivered. It was terrifying, horrible, really, thinking that she might have had – no, _really_ had – that experience, in another life. Another Mary had suffered through… "That's terrifying," she said, trying to pull her mind away from that train of thought.

Lilian shrugged. "When I was eight I tried to run away from home. I didn't manage it. I had to go back two days later, cold and hungry. My parents never even noticed I was gone. In the other world, I asked Aerin to come with me. She did, and we made it a lot further together. All the way to mum's cousins' house, the Rosier Estate. Lord Rosier, Mandy and Carrie's father, he took us in. It was… a wakeup call, for my parents. They, well, they didn't become the parents I wish I had, but they at least paid us decent attention. Acted like a family again, you know?"

"What happened to them? In this world, I mean. You told me your dad taught you how to fly when you were little, but… Sorry, if you don't want to say, you don't have to."

Lilian sighed. "It's okay. You're practically family. I… I used to have a little brother. Connor. Their peacetime baby. He was my parents' pride and joy. Sweet little kid, you know? He was two years younger than me, so he would have been starting school next year. There was an accident, when he was five and I was seven. I think Sean knows, but he won't tell me and Aerin exactly what happened. We don't talk about it, anyway. Aerin and I were off visiting the Abbotts, and when we came back we found out that there had been some stupid _accident_ , and Connor was dead." The girl sounded furious, but there were tears in her eyes. "My parents… they weren't the same, after. Sean says they push us away because they can't stand the thought of losing another child, but… In the other world, it was different. It could have been _so_ different, if I had just asked Aerin to come with me when I tried to run off."

Mary hesitated. She had no idea how to comfort people.

Before she could think of a response, Lilian sniffled and brushed away the tears that were threatening to fall. "What was your other world like?"

"Bad. Horrible, really. I, well, it started, I guess when I stole a box of matches. In this world, I didn't dare. In that world, I did. And I lit them all, one by one, stayed up all night in my cupboard just lighting matches. I lost track of time, and my aunt scared me in the morning, and I dropped one, and, well, kind of controlled the fire. Accidental magic. It chased them through the house, I think, and burned down the dining table before they got it put out. It… scared them."

Lilian smiled cruelly. "They deserved it, from what you've said."

"Yeah, well… as bad as things were, they could have been much, much worse, and they were, in that world. They…" Mary hesitated again, and Lilian squeezed her hand with a concerned look. "They tried to _beat the magic out of me_ ," she whispered. "They tried to stop me getting my letter. And then Hagrid introduced me to magic, not Professor McGonagall, and I didn't know _anything,_ and ran into Malfoy at Madam Malkin's and demanded that the Sorting Hat put me anywhere but Slytherin because I didn't have any friends, but I didn't want to be in the same house as _him_." The other girl giggled a little at this. "So I was a _Gryffindor_ , and I was friends with Hermione, who was also a Gryffindor, and that moron Ron Weasley, of all people, and I don't think we had ever even _spoken_ to each other. And when they found out I'm a parselmouth, not even the Slytherins stood by me. Or, they might have, I guess, but I considered them all enemies, since I was in Gryffindor. I had never done a ritual at all – I didn't even know they existed. The only reason I was in the courtyard that day, today, I guess, but in the other world, the other me – Circe, this is confusing!"

"I know. Nott kept correcting me earlier, it was awful."

"Well, anyway, the only reason Gryffindor-me was in the courtyard at all was that I was wandering around feeling sorry for myself, and Madden spotted me and called me over to join in, and I was so bored and lonely that I did."

Both girls sat quietly for what seemed like a very long time.

"I can't imagine not knowing you," Lilian said. "We were still friends in my other world."

"I'm glad. What I can't figure out is how Hermione ended up in Gryffindor with the other me."

"You met before school, right? Maybe you convinced her that Ravenclaw was the way to go."

"Yeah. Maybe." There was another silence, and then Mary spoke again. "Do you think we should go check on her? Just in case?"

"You mean in case this is all as disturbing and disorienting for her as it is for us?"

"Yeah. I mean, she doesn't even have a Theo to explain things to her, and I don't think she knows that other Ravenclaw who joined in today, the weird little blonde girl."

"Lovegood," Lilian said idly. "Yeah, we probably should."

Mary nodded. "Hang on, I'll go get the Cloak. Be right back."

The Ravenclaws didn't object to visitors in their common room as long as they could answer the requisite riddle, but there was every chance that Filch would be roaming the dungeons, because there were hardly any non-Slytherin students in the castle, and he would be only too happy to give Mary detention – he was still smarting over the petrification of Mrs. Norris, even though she had nothing to do with it. Using the Invisibility Cloak to get up to the fifth floor was only a sensible precaution.


	13. Veritaserum (Winter Hols 3 of 3)

**[A/N: Part 3 of Chapter 10]**

* * *

Saturday, 25 December 1992 – Christmas 

_Mary_

The days between Yule and Christmas were far more solemn and thoughtful than any professors, and, if pressed, any of the students, had expected, given that between the Weasleys and Morgana's Slytherins, there were nearly as many pranksters in residence as student targets. All five troublemakers, however, seemed to be thinking as hard about the other lives they had lived as Mary, Lilian, and Hermione. The Ravenclaw had refused to tell the Slytherins what her other world had been like, aside from, "I met Malfoy in Diagon Alley, and he told me Muggleborns weren't welcome in Slytherin. So I convinced the Hat to put me in Slytherin. It… wasn't pretty." But she had been sitting up in the Ravenclaw common room, just like they had downstairs, and had been glad enough of their company.

The only people seemingly not affected by what they had seen – including the professors – were Blaise, who was always perfectly inscrutable when he wanted to be, and Draco, who was as much a prat as ever. Even Theo was different – more reverent, Mary thought. On Christmas Eve, Draco, true to form, decided to taunt Mary over the holiday password to the Slytherin common room. The seventh-year prefects had set it to 'pureblood' before they left, in reference to the now-simmering (but not open) disagreement within the House about their founder's heritage. The argument ended with Mary shrieking that Malfoy must have been dropped on his head as a child, summoning a snake in that dueling club meeting. At that, Lilian had dragged Mary from the room, before her friend could actually hex the twerp. As she said, it wasn't that he didn't deserve it, but she didn't want to ruin Christmas over him.

Little did Lilian know, Christmas would be ruined by an entirely other person.

It started off well enough – spectacular, actually. Mary woke at her usual time – much earlier than almost anyone who wasn't on the Slytherin Quidditch team – to find a stack of gifts, rather larger than the year before.

Hermione, limited to owl-order this year like Mary, had gotten her one of the lightweight, indoor scarves that had become terribly popular in the Castle over the past two months. It was green with a silver border and little silver tassels on the ends. Mary, who had asked Aerin to scope out what Hermione was planning to get, had reciprocated with the same scarf in blue and silver. She was fairly certain that Lilian had ordered the Ravenclaw a history of wizarding etiquette that she had had her eye on since summer, and had told the older girl to send the bold Slytherin muggle mystery novels, the cheaper and trashier the better. This meant that Mary was free to send Lilian a scarf matching hers and Hermione's, in bright autumn colors, which she thought would look nice with the older girl's hair. Lilian had gotten Mary a book on glamours and appearance charms. Her note said one of her aunts had given her a copy the year before, and promised a makeover party before the end of the holiday.

Aerin, the twins, and the three other Slytherin members of their conspiracy had sent small parcels of candy and chocolate, as had the other members of the Quidditch team. Mary had anticipated this (thanks to Aerin's warning on the subject) and had sent similar packages to all of them. Cammy, Podley, and the Hogwarts elves had been left cards, just as she had done the year previous.

The elder Grangers, once again, had sent a package of muggle clothing – denims and jumpers. Hermione had to be casting sizing charms on her from behind or something, Mary decided, because these looked like they would fit just as well as the last set had, with a bit of room to grow over the coming months. Mary had been expecting it this time, and had arranged for a magical fruit basket to be delivered to their home, along with a book on all the magical fruits that would be included and how to prepare them: dirigible plums sounded delightful, but tricky to eat. The Grangers' note, just wishing her a happy holiday, drew out another little stab of guilt over the fact that they still didn't know about the attacks, but she pushed it aside, pulling one of the new jumpers – soft and black – over her wizarding shirtwaist and skirt.

The Professor, too, had sent another practical gift, though Mary did not recognize it as such at first. It was a delicate necklace: a silver chain with a bright green stone. The stone was set in silver, and the back of the pendant had tiny runes etched into it. The note explained that the stone was a peridot, and the setting would draw in ambient magic, and protect or heal the wearer from minor curses. Crystal magic, Professor McGonagall had written, was one of the most wide-spread applications of alchemy, and if Mary was interested, she would be pleased to discuss it further when they met for Christmas tea. For all Mary had been involved with the Philosopher's Stone debacle the previous year, she really had little idea what alchemy entailed, so she was very excited at the prospect. She had arranged for the Professor to be sent a Night-Blooming Selas plant, which Catherine had told her was 'Aunt Minnie's' favorite. It was easily the most expensive gift she had ordered – apparently Selas was like the ornery cat of flowers – nearly impossible to tame and cultivate, with a mind of its own. She hoped it arrived safely.

Catherine herself had sent a small collection of everyday jewelry, mostly bracelets and earrings. Proper rings weren't allowed in Potions, and robes made it difficult to see necklaces. Mary had seen her yearmates wearing similar things, but would never have thought to buy any such fripperies for herself. She made a note to ask Lilian to pierce her ears at their makeover party. Her favorite piece was a silver cuff of chain links that reminded her of scales. The note said that the elder Urquharts frowned on the celebration of Christmas, but they had no problem with an exchange of gifts for Yule, so her apologies for the 'tardiness' of the gift. Mary giggled aloud at this, imagining the older girl's subtle tone of amusement at her grandparents' nod toward progressives and maintenance of their firm traditionalist stance. Mary had sent Catherine the journal of an Italian lady adventurer from the turn of the century. She had gotten it enchanted to read the passages aloud, which, as she explained in her note, she hoped would help her friend with her studies of the language. She had also wished the older girl glad tidings for the recent holiday, but, knowing her family, had neglected to say _which_ holiday, and had not even implied that the gift was related to the holiday at all. She thought Catherine would be pleased by her tactfulness.

Mary's last gift was a tiny, neatly wrapped box, from Remus Lupin. She opened it excitedly and found it contained… a key. It looked like an ordinary skeleton key – the sort that would open most of the doors in the castle, if they hadn't been spelled shut, rather than locked most of the time. She set it aside and turned to his note, looking for an explanation. She was not disappointed.

The unassuming skeleton key was apparently enchanted to open any lock and undo basic wards without leaving a magical signature behind. It was based on a mythical Artifact of the Chaotic Power called Kuma Lisa's Key. The mythical version could undo _any_ ward, and could lock everything up again behind a worthy mischief-maker. Much like invisibility cloaks, which were based on Death's Cloak in the Tale of Three Brothers, clever enchanters had done their best throughout the nineteenth century to replicate the effects of the Key. The result was the magical lockpick now known as a Lupin's Best Friend (referring to a famous French wizard recognized by the muggle world as a gentleman thief). They had been all the rage among the criminal classes of Europe and Asia in the 1890s, but wardcrafters had quickly adjusted to their limitations, and they had fallen out of style in the magical world by the early 1900s. Most wards were now too complex for the key to pick, but Remus had won this one in the Ukraine in a card game, and thought the next generation Marauder might find a use for it. If nothing else, it was a fascinating curiosity, and a nifty little piece of enchanting. The chocolate fancy (an animated sculpture of a dragon, like the ones the students had destroyed at the Halloween feast) that Mary had bribed the elves into making for the Last Marauder paled in comparison.

The most exciting part of Remus' note, however, was not the explanation of her gift or the mention of another Artifact of the Powers (which sounded _fascinating_ , really, even if they were terribly dangerous, like the Mirror of Erised or the Deathstick). It was the tiny (and she was sure intentionally short) post script, which read, simply, "Your headmaster is always looking for new DADA professors, and has offered me the position for next year. I am inclined to take him up on it. – Moony." Her squeal of excitement was so loud it brought Lilian and Millicent to knock on her door in concern.

After reassuring the other Slytherins that she was fine, and had only received exceedingly good news (and sharing her expectations that they would have a decent DADA professor next year, which caused even the ever-repressed Millie to crack a smile), the three girls joined the remainder of their house for a late breakfast. The afternoon was spent in the common room, cheerfully writing thank-you notes with the other Slytherins, and before Mary knew it, it was time for tea.

 _Dumbledore_

One of Albus Dumbledore's few indulgences in life, or so he liked to think, was a long-standing habit of sleeping in on Christmas. He woke, quite coincidentally, at the same time as Mary Potter, many stories below, and quickly dealt with the Christmas gifts from his close friends and acquaintances, setting those from admirers and former students (and who wasn't a former student, after nearly sixty years of teaching?) aside to be addressed later.

He was pleased to find that Alastor Moody had remembered him, sending a very nice pocket foe glass, and young Remus Lupin had sent a collection of muggle sweets, along with a timely response agreeing to take on the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor for the coming year – truly the best Christmas present he had been given in quite some time, to have that perennial thorn in his side sorted out so far ahead of the deadline. Minerva, who still had not forgiven him for leaving Mary Potter with her aunt, nor for the Philosopher's Stone incident the year before, had sent him very plain, though serviceable, knitted wool socks. Everyone else who knew him at all sent books or enchanted knickknacks to add to the collection of whirring, chiming chaos which he kept in his office for the amusement of himself and the current students (and the irritation of Severus, Minerva, and Aurora).

He habitually took lunch with his brother on Christmas, despite their mutual loathing of each other's company. On Albus' part, his presence was compelled by an old promise to the one girl he had ever cared for – his long-dead sister Ariana. He didn't know why Abe kept their annual appointment. It only ever ended miserably. Though he hated to admit it, Albus was, more often than not, the one whose temper got the best of him. He had stormed out of Abe's pub the last four years running.

On the way out of the Castle, he stopped at his deputy's quarters. Irritated with him or not, she still needed to be informed that he would be outside the wards for the afternoon, and that she was therefore in charge of the affairs of the Castle in his absence. Not that he expected anything untoward to occur on a Christmas afternoon, but nevertheless… To his surprise and gratification, Minerva let slip that she had no plans until tea, when her ward would be coming to visit. She quite obviously had not intended this as anything other than an assurance that she would be able to keep an eye on things while he was out, but he took the opportunity to invite himself to their little tête-à- tête, and pretended not to comprehend her strong hints that his presence would be unwelcome.

There was a spring in his step as he made his way down to the Apparition point. Who knew, with the prospect of bringing Mary Potter around to his side later in the evening, perhaps he would manage to make Aberforth lose _his_ cool for once.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

 _Damn him!_ Albus thought as he stalked back up the path from the gates to the Castle. Even when Albus was in what he considered an unshakeable good mood, his younger brother had a way of getting under his skin. The elder Dumbledore had left in a huff after the (slightly) younger man implied that he had somehow coerced his phoenix into staying with him. The insult had no substance, of course. One could not induce a phoenix to stay with anyone it did not choose, and they would not bond to anyone who was less than confident of their own inherent goodness. Yes, Albus had made mistakes in his time, but he had never intentionally led anyone from the path of righteousness, and everything he had ever done, even after he and Gellert parted ways, was for the Greater Good. But to think his own _brother_ thought so little of him…

Well, there was always tea with Minerva and the little Potter girl to look forward to.

Albus planned to arrive at Minerva's office slightly late. He had gotten the impression from little Mary that she did not appreciate his company when he had skimmed the surface of her mind after that nasty attack on the Finch-Fletchley boy and Sir Nicholas. _I wouldn't tell_ him _if I did know anything_ , indeed. He had to wonder what the Slytherins had been telling her, that she had such a poor opinion of him. She had been avoiding his gaze since, so at the very least that Moon chit must have told her about Legilimency. She would be wary. Thus, he thought it would be better if he arrived after she was already settled, and could not politely excuse herself. If he could just get her to relax and open up to him, he was sure she could be convinced that it was the right thing to do, lending her public support to his political cause.

The plan started to go awry almost at once, as the girl nearly ran him down at the door to Minerva's office.

"Oh!" he said, hiding his annoyance, "I see I'm not the only one running a bit late today! Merry Christmas, Mary, my dear!"

"Headmaster! I'm so sorry," she said, looking down in apparent shame. "I wasn't looking where I was going. Happy Christmas. Erm, begging your pardon, but I was running late for tea with Professor McGonagall…"

"Well, then," he replied, all grandfatherly smiles, "after you." He opened the door. "I just had a few things to discuss with Minerva myself. I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

"Oh! Albus!" The Scotswoman exclaimed, hastily tucking her wand back into its holster. Albus smiled to see that her reflexes were still sharp. "I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you to just let yourself in. Happy Christmas, Mary," she called to the girl, still waiting politely in the hall. "Do come in!"

"Happy Christmas, Professor," the girl said, keeping her voice low and polite.

Minerva ushered her to the sitting area, and Albus followed, uninvited.

"Albus, what was it that you wished to speak to me about?" Minerva asked rather coldly. "I do recall informing you I had plans this afternoon."

This was unanticipated. He could not simply allow the woman to attempt to deal with him and then dismiss him. Ah! That would do nicely. "It's about the Defense position, Minerva," he began, and was met with a very stern gaze.

"Surely, Albus, such problems may wait until after _Christmas Tea_ to be dealt with?" the witch said in an exasperated tone.

Albus turned his charm up to eleven. "Not a problem, Minerva – not a problem at all! In fact, I have received very good news which might as such be considered a _solution_ to the problem, at least for the coming year."

"Albus. I have a guest. A _student_ guest. Could we not discuss staffing this evening, or even tomorrow? It's not exactly _urgent_ at the moment, is it?"

"Ah, but I do believe your young guest will find this particular bit of information both relevant and a pleasant surprise! For Christmas, as it were."

"Oh, fine," the professor huffed. She turned to the girl. "Miss Mary, do you mind if we are joined by another for tea?"

In an instant, the overly-excited and rushed twelve-year-old who had nearly collided with him in the corridor and stared blatantly at the adult conversation played out before her was replaced by a properly respectful, well-bred young lady. She straightened her posture, crossing her ankles and tucking them behind the leg of her chair, and spoke in a carefully modulated tone which gave away nothing of her true feelings. He was reminded strongly of the young Narcissa Black, whose company that old boy Horace had forced upon him with his ridiculous Holiday parties from her very first year. Of course, with the black curls, funereal clothing – who wore black and white on Christmas? – and thin, pointed face, she looked more like Bellatrix – bad luck, that. She had clearly taken after James, and James after Dorea. But there had always been a glimmer of calculating madness in Bellatrix's eyes. No, this Mary Potter was more like Narcissa – polite, distant and very, very cold – in short, the image of a well-trained pureblood princess.

"Of course not, Professor. Headmaster Dumbledore, sir, be welcome at our table." She gestured toward a seat.

"Thank you, my dear, and may I say, it looks like a fine repast indeed!" The elves had provided not only tea and biscuits, but a large selection of sandwiches, toasts, and spreads. He had only just come from lunch, and it was still enticing.

The adults settled themselves, and Minerva allowed Mary to pour. Albus was, by turns, impressed by how well the girl seemed to have mastered the pureblood dance of propriety, and dismayed that she had managed it so quickly – surely not even the Slytherins were so well-behaved in their own common room! His mother had always felt, and he agreed, that it was unnatural to see a child so composed.

They made small talk over the sandwiches, discussing Christmas gifts and exchanging their thanks. Albus raised an eyebrow when Minerva showed off the Selas plant, a climbing vine with tiny reddish, bell-like flowers which opened at night. It was an impressive gift for a second-year, even one who had the Potter vaults at her disposal. He wondered if the girl knew how rare such a thing truly was. Probably not, he decided, and made a mental note to get back in Minerva's good graces – one never knew when a bit of Selas nectar would come in handy. If she did know the value of the gift, she said nothing – murmuring only that she was pleased it had arrived safely, and that Minerva was pleased with the gift, before thanking the woman for the silver and peridot necklace she was wearing over her collared shirtwaist and black muggle jumper. Even Albus had to admit, it matched her eyes startlingly well, and added an adult touch to the girl's otherwise childish (albeit somber) outfit. Albus pretended that nice, warm, woolen socks were the one thing he was always lacking at Christmas. He did not think either of the ladies appreciated his humor.

Mary poured a second cup of tea for each of them before Albus finally released the bit of information which had gotten him into the little party in the first place. Minerva was suitably relieved to hear that the Lupin boy had agreed to return as the next sacrifice to the curse on the DADA position. Given his occupation over the past ten years, he might even survive it, though he had, of course, only agreed to the one year, and only if Albus could somehow supply the Wolfsbane potion to control his transformations. Apparently he was less willing to risk the safety of the students today than he had been to risk the safety of his peers twenty years before, but then, Albus could not truly fault the man for having grown up a bit. He would make it happen. If nothing else, Severus could be persuaded to just brew the damn thing. Mary, on the other hand, showed no reaction at all. After several minutes' discussion between Albus and Minerva, she admitted that she had already had the news from Lupin himself, but congratulated him on _finally_ managing to find a suitable candidate to fill the position. That neither Quirrell nor Lockhart were suitable, in her opinion, was only implied, but Minerva seemed to find it highly amusing.

Albus waited through nearly two hours of stilted, structured, overly-polite conversation about classes and second-year adventures, and the dreadful attacks, and three cups of tea trying to find the right moment to propose that the girl ought to begin to accompany him on political appearances. He did not find such an opening. Minerva announced at six that she should like to adjourn to the Great Hall for the sake of appearances, even if she had eaten far too many sandwiches to warrant dinner, and the dratted girl agreed at once.

Faced with the prospect of losing what might be his best chance to convince the girl to take her proper place as a political symbol at his side, Albus decided to take his best shot.

"I have been wondering, my dear, whether you might like to accompany me to the first Wizengamot meeting of the year," he proposed, just as the girl was about to offer her farewells.

"Whyever should you offer such a thing, Headmaster?" she asked smoothly, looking at his face, but not meeting his eyes.

"Well, my girl, it would be a most excellent opportunity for you, I should think, to see how the process of government works in our fair state," he said with his sincerest smile, thinking to appeal to the Slytherin selfishness she must possess.

"You misunderstand me, sir," the girl said, with a tiny smile of her own. It grew suddenly vicious as she asked, "What's in it for _you_?"

"Ah, that is…" Albus faltered in the face of such a reaction. "As an educator, it is my duty to –"

"No, sir," she interrupted firmly, "my education as the Heir of House Potter is none of your business. I am certain that should my guardian or my foster family deem it necessary, I will attend one of the summer sessions. But I will not trail along behind you and be presented as some trophy-piece or political bargaining chip firmly in the pocket of the Light. Professor, Headmaster, good day." And with that the young aristocrat swept out.

Minerva glared at Albus, and motioned the door closed with her wand before taking him to task over his actions. He arranged his features to look contrite, while internally he simply sighed. The day had started off with such potential. Humbug.

Tuesday, 5 January 1993 Hogwarts

Mary spent the week after Christmas first in irritation with Dumbledore for interrupting her visit with the Professor and making her act all proper on the holiday, and then in confusion over what exactly he had been trying to accomplish. She had shut him down and refused to trail along behind him in public mostly because she didn't like him. She had no idea whether he really wanted to use her politically or not – he wasn't a Slytherin after all. If Lucius Malfoy had made the same offer, she was sure that would have been his motivation. In any case, she hoped that she had offended the old man sufficiently that he would leave her alone.

Professor McGonagall had rescheduled their tea for New Year's Day. She had apologized profusely for allowing the Headmaster to interrupt their Christmas tea and congratulated Mary on her behavior. She said Catherine could not have done any better, which was the best compliment Mary could remember getting in a very long time. They had finally gotten to discuss crystal magic, which Mary thought was fascinating, and it was, on the whole, the most pleasant, least formal interaction she had had with the Professor since the previous Christmas. She had even been invited to call the Professor 'Aunt Minnie' in private, just like the younger Urquharts.

The third of January was Lilian's birthday. Aerin, Mary, and Hermione performed the thirteenth birthday ritual for her just as she had helped perform it for Hermione, but first thing in the morning, since there were no classes. Lilian, who had been introduced to magic before, was not nearly as overwhelmed as the Ravenclaw had been. Afterward, all the girls who had chosen to stay in the Castle had been invited to hole up in a deserted classroom and spend the day eating sweets, practicing different beauty spells on each other, and playing dress-up with glamour charms.

The little blonde waif from Ravenclaw did not attend, nor did Ginny Weasley. The other Ravenclaws explained that their housemate was quite mad, and had told them she would be hunting some made-up creature when they had asked her to attend, and no one had managed to catch the Gryffindor to ask her at all. The twins had said that she was spending most of her time up in her room or out wandering the castle. They thought that she had gotten used to being alone the previous year, when she was the only child at home, and advised the other girls that if she wanted to spend time with them, she wasn't so shy that she wouldn't seek them out. The Slytherins and Ravenclaws had essentially shrugged, and went on with the party without them.

Mary had never had a 'girls' day' before, and she found she enjoyed it immensely. Chances to act like a 'normal' almost-teenage girl and forget that most of the school thought she was out to kill them all were few and far between.

Morgana ended up piercing Mary's ears for her (which hurt far less than she had been expecting), and after about ten different hair charms from all of the older girls, Hermione developed perfectly-tamed ringlet curls. Aerin and Mallory Prince – the fifth-year Ravenclaw prefect who had stayed behind – had used a series of subtle charms on Lilian and Millicent. Mary thought they could pass for sixteen by the time they were done, and Millicent looked much more confident and outgoing with a bit pink in her cheeks and darker eyelashes. Professors Vector and Sinistra poked their heads into the party a couple of times to make sure they weren't getting into too much trouble, and make jokes about the boys not knowing what hit them come dinnertime.

Fred, George, Adrian, and Perry made an alliance to try to prank the girls that afternoon, but thanks to Mallory and Morgana's quick shield spells, they failed miserably. One of the twins (whichever one was going by Gred that day) was captured in the attack. In addition to being turned bright green by the boys' reflected charms, he was given a very girly makeover, complete with a hair-extension spell and glamours that mimicked eyeshadow and lipstick. To top it off, they had dressed him in one of Mallory's spare robes. If Mary had to guess, she thought that the appearance of the Weasley twin at dinner was more shocking than the girls' makeovers, though Hermione's well-behaved hair might have come close. Even Professor Snape gave them a smirk which held a hint of real amusement.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Two days later, the Conspiracy reconvened in an altogether more serious mood. The Veritaserum (and its antidote) were complete. Hermione and the twins had done everything they could think of to test that it had been done correctly except actually try it on each other. That, they had decided, the entire group deserved to witness.

The twins, outside of the playful attack on Lilian's party, had refrained, for the most part, from any kind of mischief over the holiday. Instead, they had spent most of their days since Yule outside, constructing an enormous, magically reinforced snow-fort. With less than twenty students in the castle (and four of those Slytherins who would never consider joining the Weasleys in their antics), they weren't able to maintain the previous year's schedule of constant snow-battles; they were simply building it to have something to do. When Hermione had suggested that they test the Veritaserum at the Fort, they had carved an extra set of secrecy and protection runes into the walls, so that neither of their siblings or the half-dozen other non-conspirators in the castle could eavesdrop. Then, taking their preparations fully into the realm of paranoia in Mary's mind, they had set up a perimeter ward, which would alert them if anyone, including a professor, came within a hundred yards of the structure.

The older Slytherins, for once agreeing with their rival pranksters, had argued that they couldn't be too paranoid – Veritaserum, even the most basic version that they had brewed, was a controlled substance, and their plan was… morally ambiguous, at best. It was, Perry pointed out rather snidely, a good thing that Professor Snape had already completed his questioning of the Slytherins, because he would have sussed out what they were doing in a trice, if he legilimized them after they began their interrogations.

Hermione brought out the flask of the completed potion, settling it onto a snow-bench with reverence before reviewing its specifics for the others. The potion was completely undetectable both while active, and after administration. It was odorless, colorless, and left no magical trace. There were variations which were meant to be mixed into other liquids, and one which could overcome the antidote to the basic version (though that was detectable after the fact), but for this, the most basic version, the dose was the same for everyone – no tricky calculations of weight or the like. One drop would make the drinker loose-lipped and suggestable. Two would ensure that the drinker spoke only the truth. Three compelled the truth from a drinker's lips. Six drops without the antidote, or in less than twenty-four hours, would land the drinker in the hospital wing, and ten would be fatal. That was if it had been brewed perfectly, which, she hastened to assure the group, they thought it had been. If – when – they proved that it worked, Hermione and the twins would separate out the potion into hundreds of individual doses, so that there could be no chance of an accidental overdose.

The antidote, the boys explained, pulling a set of small bottles with eyedroppers from their pockets and handing them around, was inert, and could be ingested safely without any side effects or consequences. They had already tested it, and there were no ill effects. One drop would reverse three drops of Veritaserum, and would protect you for a full day against the truth potion, or until the truth potion was ingested. They cancelled each other out. Without the antidote, the Veritaserum would wear off slowly, taking about four hours to reach a point of two-drop honesty, and a full day to clear the system completely, which meant the antidote was necessary for their plan to go undetected.

Hermione volunteered to go first with the truth serum. The twins looked awfully anxious, but they must have discussed it beforehand, because neither one of them said anything against her. One of the red-heads measured three careful drops into a clean vial, and the bushy-haired Ravenclaw tossed it back before either of her closest friends could tell her to wait. Her bright eyes dimmed a bit as the potion took hold of her.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" the boy who had handed over the potion asked.

"Yes," she replied, unnaturally calm.

"Can you lie?" the other twin asked eagerly.

Hermione obviously tried to say something, but whatever it was, she failed. "No."

"How do we know she's not faking it?" Adrian asked.

"You're all going to have to take it, too, obviously," Hermione said, her natural inclination to answer any question asked anywhere near her only enhanced by the potion.

"We should ask the interrogation questions, while we're all here, just to be sure," Perry suggested. His companions nodded, and the younger Slytherins agreed at once. They needed to know that they could trust each other, that they hadn't included the Heir in their Conspiracy. They were simply too suspicious as a house to trust anyone outside of their respective close friends.

The twins shared a look, and one of them rolled his eyes. "Of course," the other boy said with a drawl reminiscent of Professor Snape. "Go ahead, then," the eye-roller added.

Morgana took over. "What is your full name?"

"Hermione Jean Granger."

"What is your true opinion on blood status?"

"I'm fairly certain blood doesn't really matter. I mean, I'm obviously just as magically capable as any wizard-born student in my year – pureblood or halfblood or whatever. Blood prejudice is a cultural thing, like Daddy says race is in the muggle world, and in my opinion, it's a load of shite. All the old pureblood families are full of inbred arseholes like Malfoy, anyway. Crabbe and Goyle are practically trolls."

Morgana made a funny face at that. "Moon, do try to find the opportunity to educate your housemate on the intricacies of family magics and why being a pureblood does, actually, matter," she said under her breath. Aerin nodded, and Mary made a note to get herself included in that conversation.

"What's that?" Hermione asked, any hesitancy she might normally have had about asking overwhelmed by the truth serum fogging her mind.

"Never you mind. Are you the Heir of Slytherin?"

"No, of course not. Although if you think about it, I'm sure there's a better chance that the Heir is a muggleborn than that it's someone with a known pedigree. The Gaunts are all dead, and they were the last known descendants of Slytherin, right? All it would take is one squib off the Slytherin line, and bingo, complete unknown inherits the title of heir of Slytherin. Though really, isn't the House of Slytherin long gone, since no one bears the name anymore?"

Morgana sighed and cut off the girl's babbling. "Do you know who or what caused the petrification of Creevey, Finch-Fletchley, and the Gryffindor ghost?"

"Well, not _directly_ , but I'm planning to find out. As for the monster, we think it's a basilisk, my friends and I, though we don't know how it's actually petrifying people and not killing them. And I suppose if you have to lay the blame somewhere, you could say Dumbledore is causing the attacks by keeping the school open, or the board of governors, but as for whoever is supposedly opening the Chamber of Secrets, I've no idea. Maybe Lockhart. I hear it's always the DADA professor. Like the butler, you know." Hermione peered earnestly at her questioner.

"I think that covers the next three questions, as well. Does anyone else have anything to add?" the Slytherin asked the assembled group.

"If you were the Heir of Slytherin, who would you attack?" Lilian asked.

"Probably the next person to piss off Elizabeth. Why ruin a good frame up? It's not like there's been any other rhyme or reason to the attacks."

"Maia!" Mary exclaimed, as Lilian sniggered.

"What? That's the smart thing to do. It follows the pattern, what little there is of one. Though the cat is a bit of an outlier, I suppose, and two data points aren't really a trend, per se…"

"All right," Morgana said with a smirk, "I think that's enough. Give her the antidote, Weasley. Who's next?"

Mary volunteered, eager to clear her own name. The Veritaserum was odd on her tongue, sinking in and making her mouth feel dry, rather than moistened by the liquid, but it had no taste at all. She tried to lie when Hermione asked her name, and found it pulled from her involuntarily. It was very disconcerting. Everyone was highly amused when she said she would attack Gilderoy Lockhart if she were really the heir, and laughed even harder at her answer to the follow-up question of why – "He's an enormous jackass and deserves to spend the rest of his life with his bloody perfect smile frozen in place. Or dead. Whichever. So long as he can't talk or go about ruining perfectly good arms."

They cycled through all the other Slytherins next. None of them thought blood status was completely unimportant, and Hermione took offence to that, until Aerin promised to explain what the big bloody deal was later that evening. The younger Ravenclaw still sat fuming in a corner and refused to participate until they reached the Weasley twins. In addition to the extra question about who they would attack if they could ("Dunno, Ron? He's been a right git lately. Worse than Percy, even."), Adrian asked George how they could tell the twins apart. The entirely unsatisfying answer was, "Fred is in Creatures. I'm in Muggle Studies." After that, Fred called an end to George's questioning. Aerin was the last to be questioned. Perry cut off the beginning of what seemed to be a very long discussion on the nature and meaning of blood status in the magical world, telling her to save it for the muggleborn, which, she said, was the reason she would attack Perry if she were the heir. Apparently she did not take kindly to high-handed interruptions.

Within an hour, they were all convinced that none of their fellow conspirators was the Heir.

The general consensus was that everyone suspected Lockhart, which led to a long discussion of whether they ought to question him as well. Hermione was inclined to say no, because as a professor he was more likely to cotton onto their activities than the other students. Everyone else rebuffed her, with the argument that as the DADA professor and an utter incompetent, he probably wouldn't even notice. Eventually, Morgana, Perry, and Adrian simply informed them that they would take care of it.

After that, they spent another couple of hours practicing the stun – interrogate – antidote – befuddle – sleeping draught – levitate – revive sequence the twins had developed to mask their activities. They also discussed the logistics of their project. It was eventually decided that it would be easiest for the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws to interrogate their housemates, while the five Slytherins worked together to deal with the Hufflepuffs – their house was already cleared, after all, and Hufflepuffs tended to move in larger groups than any of the other houses, so it made sense that the largest group within the Conspiracy would target them.

Hermione would pass the necessary potions to Lilian and Mary to deliver to the other Slytherins. Morgana suggested that they should only keep small amounts of each potion on hand, the rest remaining wherever it had been brewed. It would mean more exchanges, but they would be less likely to be caught with it. Perry added that they shouldn't leave any of it unattended in their dorms, but carry it with them and practice their vanishing charms, just in case they needed to get rid of it in a hurry. This, of course, led to an impromptu tutoring session for the younger students, who had not yet learned to vanish anything, let alone incriminating evidence.

They finally made their way up to the castle, tired and cold, just before dinner.

}{-}[-}{-}{-}{

The next morning, Hermione delivered the requisite potions to Mary and Lilian, along with the news that Mallory Prince was innocent, and Luna Lovegood, the waif, would be joining their conspiracy, due to the fact that she had instantly and without hesitation informed them that a basilisk was the most likely weapon of petrification, if a creature was indeed at fault. When they had asked the girl why none of the victims had died, she had explained that none of the victims had actually looked the basilisk in the eye, seeing it instead in a reflection or through a camera or a ghost. Aerin had immediately declared that they could use another person who picked out important details like that, even one who insisted that if she were the Heir of Slytherin, she would petrify Minister Fudge to free his army of heliopaths.

Mary was reluctant to add more people to their group, but what had been done, had been done. She had only one question about the Ravenclaw firstie: "What's a heliopath?"

"No idea!" Hermione said with a huff. "I can't find anything about them at all in the library. I'm not sure they actually exist. I mean, if the minister has an army of them, you'd think someone would _know_ , wouldn't they?"

The Slytherins simply laughed, and Hermione changed the subject, wanting Lilian's explanation of why blood purity actually mattered. Apparently Aerin hadn't gotten around to telling her. The short answer, and the one Hermione eventually accepted, albeit reluctantly, and with great irritation, was that there wasn't really a difference between purebloods and muggleborns _personally_ , but purebloods normally inherited family grimoires (which contained jealously guarded family secrets and spells) and often had multi-generational curses or blessings on their bloodlines that gave them a bit of a leg up, magically speaking. "Moons have a bit of a gift with all kinds of animals," for example, the tall Slytherin said with a shrug. "It's not a huge deal, but it's not unimportant, either."

At that, Hermione decided she needed to think about the issue for a while, and withdrew back to the nearly deserted Ravenclaw tower. Lilian decided to go back to her new muggle crime novels (she was very pleased with Hermione's gift), and Mary wandered the castle a bit more, enjoying the freedom of the empty corridors. There was still time, after all, to appreciate the peace and quiet before everyone who hated her returned, and apparently they could rest easy for the moment – Unless it was one of the Weasleys (and that seemed very unlikely), the real Heir must have gone home for the holiday as well.


	14. Lunacy

**[A/N: Chapter 11 is also very long (~15k words) and is therefore presented in two parts.]**

* * *

 **Chapter 11: Lunacy and Madness**

[In which Tom cuts his lies close to the truth, and we see things from a different perspective.]

Wednesday, 13 January – Thursday, 11 February 1993

["A rose by any other name would still be Tom." In which Diary!Tom and Luna have a chat.]

 _Today was a most unusual day. It started off quite normally enough, of course, as most days tend to do, but then around lunch-time I noticed that my Transfiguration notes have gone wandering again, and the Wrackspurts are particularly active and it's not even the new moon. Then right before dinner, I was visiting Myrtle and found this book… She was most upset, of course, she always is, but today moreso than usual. She said someone tried to flush it down her toilet, which was obviously a silly thing to do – there was no way it ever would have fit. But anyway, she washed it out, and flooded the loo, and when I arrived, it was the only dry thing to be seen. It seemed terribly odd. It appears to be nothing more than an old journal, empty, never used. I am always sad for things that are meant to be used and aren't. Perhaps that is why it is so very odd – like a ghost, it has unfinished business to attend. Except instead of haunting, it refuses to die until it is properly used. I have decided to help it fulfil its purpose, and so that is why I am writing here now. That and Professor McGonagall insists that I need to practice my penmanship. I don't know why she's complaining. None of the other professors do, and she can clearly read what I write. There is nothing else 'plimpie' could possibly be… I believe she secretly hates me due to a falling-out with my father over the Rotfang Conspiracy. He says she's not one of them, but I have my doubts. Ta for now, journal. The dinner-bells call._

 ** _Hello? Hello? My name is Tom. Who are you?_**

 _Oh, hello, Tom. That is a very difficult question, isn't it? I imagine most people spend all their lives deciding who they are. Perhaps I'll know when I'm older. Who are you?_

 ** _You are very odd. What do they call you?_**

 _Yes, and you are quite rude. Luna._

 ** _My apologies, Luna. I did not intend to offend you._**

 _Oh, you didn't. I thought we were just stating the obvious, and I don't know much about you, so my options were limited. Perhaps what and not who?_

 ** _Pardon?_**

 _Perhaps I ought to have asked what, and not who you are, for it is clear you are a book, but I have never had or heard of a book that writes back to you. If you are a person, the first question stands, if not, strike and revise: What?_

 ** _I am a memory. The young man the diary used to belong to was living in London in 1943. Do you know what was happening then?_**

 _Rains of fire from the sky, a plague upon the people of Egypt_

 _Or London, as it were._

 ** _…Quite._**

 ** _They called it the Blitz, the muggles. The boy who used this diary was afraid he would die, so he made me when he was sixteen, as an impression of his memories, so that some part of him would be sure to survive._**

 _Like a ghost?_

 ** _No._**

 _Like a portrait?_

 ** _No._**

 _Like a horcrux?_

 ** _What? Why would you say that?_**

 _Daddy says that one mustn't trust a thing if one can't see where it keeps its brain. It might be a horcrux, lying in wait to eat your soul._

 ** _No. Not a horcrux._**

 _So you know what a horcrux is, then? I've never seen one. I think it might be like the snorkacks. Daddy says they're real, but one must always question everything, and we haven't caught one yet._

 ** _One must always question everything… are you a Ravenclaw, Luna?_**

 _I am, and you must be a Slytherin, trying to hide from my questions. What's a horcrux?_

 ** _Dark magic, and not for little girls._**

 _Then how am I to know you're not one?_

 ** _Even if I was, I wouldn't tell you, so how would you know if I was?_**

 _Good question! I suppose I'd have to wait and see if you tried to eat my soul. Or perhaps it's like the riddle with two guards and a liar…_

 ** _I'm not a riddle, either._**

 _No, you're a liar._

 ** _No, I'm not._**

 _Yes, you are, it's here, on the cover. TM Riddle. What is the 'M' for?_

 _Tom?_

 _It was a joke._

 _Am I not being spoken to by a journal? How odd, and yet how entirely normal. One wouldn't generally_ _expect_ _to be spoken to by a journal, after all._

 _La, I suppose if you are going to pretend to be a normal book, I suppose I ought to pretend this is a normal journal entry. Let's see… Before you so rudely erased it, don't think I didn't notice that, I did, I just didn't mind because it wasn't anything of importance, I was thinking about the purpose of objects and whether they are sad not to be used, because I am always sad for them, and it would be a terrible waste of feelings if they didn't appreciate my empathizing with them._

 ** _You empathize with objects for their satisfaction?_**

 _Of course, why else?_

 ** _I… don't know. What is the point of it if you don't know if they "appreciate" it or not?_**

 _Better safe than sorry. It wouldn't do to unintentionally offend my desk, for instance. It might invite sonderpips to live in its drawers, and then I would forever be losing my quills._

 ** _What are these things you mention, sonderpips and nargles and wrackspurts?_**

 _Creatures of a sort, I expect. Sometimes it is nearly as difficult to answer 'what' as 'who'._

 ** _Would you tell me about yourself, since you did not answer 'who'?_**

 _I suppose I could, if you do the same._

 ** _Agreed._**

 _Oh, alright, then. I must say, I was expecting a bit more dancing than that. They call me Luna, though that doesn't mean much, since they call me Loony more often than that. I am eleven, and a Ravenclaw, and the Hat called me an odd duck. My father owns a magazine. Several, actually, but he only prints one. Sometimes I help him write articles for it. I think most people don't believe as much as they could, and they could also stand to be less unkind. Possibilities are more important than what is known, and it is the saddest thing to kill a might-have-been. So all life's a tragedy, with just one golden strand of happenstance running through it. My mother is dead – an experiment gone wrong. The only good thing about her death is now I can see thestrals, and they're beautiful. I think they're as pretty as unicorns, in their own way. They're related to dragons, you know, and pegasi and seraphim. You can tell because they all have four legs and wings. My body is short and thin and blonde, apparently human, though I'm holding out for part-Veela. We'll see in a few years, I suppose. Anyway, looks can be deceiving, and I'm not sure that it counts as_ _me_ _._

 ** _Why wouldn't it?_**

 _Are you your pages?_

 ** _No, I told you, I'm a memory._**

 _A memory of whom?_

 ** _A sixteen year old boy, a wizard, Tom, and Riddle, as you said. He was a fifth-year Slytherin prefect, once upon a time. He hated his name. It was his father's, and he left. His mother was a witch. She died, too, in childbirth. He grew up in an orphanage, and could see thestrals too. He liked them because most people couldn't, and it made him special to see them. He was tall, with dark hair and blue eyes, and human as far as I know, though one must consider that magic makes us_** ** _better_** ** _than merely_** ** _human_** ** _. After all, muggles are human, too._**

 _Do you not like muggles, Tom?_

 ** _No._**

 _Why not?_

 ** _I lived through the Blitz, remember?_**

 _Yes, but lots of people live through wars, and they don't dislike everyone for fighting. They follow the truce and go on with their lives._

 ** _Truce?_**

 _Daddy says it would be a very small and lonely world if those who took sides never, ever left them when the war was done. I couldn't dislike all the dark if I tried – they had their reasons to do as they did. Your muggles, too. Fear, mostly, and love of power. Anger and believing that they deserved more than they had. Magic doesn't make people less human, except maybe the Blacks, but daddy says they're "special cases" and all mad anyway, so it balances out._

 ** _The Hat was right about you. Are you sure you're eleven?_**

 _No, but then, what is certainty but a delusion of grandeur and an illusion of fate? She likes to make us think we're bound to her, you know, but nothing's written before it happens, except in the stars. Even the Symphony has its jazz sequences. By the by, Saturn is growing bright this year._

 ** _What does that mean?_**

 _Maybe everything, maybe nothing. Time will tell. It's terrible at keeping secrets. What did the Hat tell you about yourself?_

 ** _That I would be happier in Hufflepuff_** _._

 _So why did you go to Slytherin?_

 ** _Because I belonged there._**

 _You sound like Mary Elizabeth. Do you know her?_

 ** _No. The only other person I know right now is Ginny Weasley._**

 _Why did she try to flush your book down Myrtle's toilet?_

 ** _I really couldn't say. I thought we were getting on well. Perhaps someone else took it from her._**

 _I suppose it's possible, though I have to say, I've never seen her as the sort to have a problem with wandering things. Perhaps you are an exception._

 ** _Oh, I am exceptional. One might go so far as to say unique._**

 _Of course you are, but then, so are we all, and in as such, similar. I find it comforting, don't you?_

 ** _No. I find most people to be insufferably dull, and would rather not be similar to them at all. You, quite frankly, are a breath of fresh air._**

 _Flattery will get you everywhere and nowhere._

 ** _Tell me about your friends. Who is Mary Elizabeth?_**

 _Not tonight. It's late. Perhaps tomorrow._

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

 _Hello, Tom._

 ** _Luna? What happened? It's been ages, and you promised me 'tomorrow'._**

 _Of course I didn't, tricksy fey boy. Promises are like certainties – knots in the thread, and I do so hate uneven thread. But I would have written, anyway. Your book went wandering. It's only just come back to me. How disappointing, that you didn't meet anyone interesting on your adventure._

 ** _What do you mean, my book went wandering?_**

 _Just that. It left my room and made its way down to the Common Room. The other girls swore they knew nothing about it, so it must have grown feet and walked off._

 ** _…_**

 ** _How long have your roommates been taking your things?_**

 _Oh, never – they're not kept, only moved. And it's twillks, you know, that make them run off._

 ** _What's a twillk? Another 'creature'?_**

 _Yes, like Eros' bugs, but not for love – for freedom and adventure._

 ** _…_**

 ** _How long has my diary been 'wandering'?_**

 _Nearly two weeks. Today is Imbolc. Tell me true, Tommy, dear, have you come back to celebrate with me?_

 ** _I hardly could have done, as I didn't know the date._**

 _Whyever should that matter?_

 ** _…_**

 ** _I don't think it matters. I can't celebrate a ritual. I'm a memory, if you recall?_**

 _A tricky proposition, indeed. Do you perhaps recall ever having done it before?_

 ** _No. I never celebrated it._**

 _Why not?_

 ** _I was raised by muggles, remember? I did not learn of Imbolc until after I was already a man._**

 _Oh, poor you. I imagine that must be very disappointing. It is a lovely ritual, after all._

 ** _I suppose I will just have to take your word for it._**

 _Alas._

 _I must away. Youth and folly hie and the Hour draws near._

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

 _Hello, Tom._

 ** _Hello, Luna._**

 _It occurred to me today that I have been remiss in my duties as the caretaker of your journal. You say you were made that a part of the boy you once were lives on, but trapped in your pages is not much life._

 ** _I admit the plan was not well-conceived. The boy was young and foolish, and never knew what life would be left to us when only I remained._**

 _What happened to him, the boy who used to be you?_

 ** _He wrote to me for years, after he made me, but then one day he disappeared. The next time someone wrote to me, it was forty years later. They said he was dead. They didn't say how._**

 _Were you very lonely in the meanwhile?_

 ** _No. Memories can't get lonely._**

 ** _And in any case, I never had many friends to miss._**

 _Did you never want them? I always did. It is not quite how I imagined it, but still nice._

 ** _Tell me about your friends._**

 _Well, the first thing one ought to know about friends is there's no rhyme or reason behind them. They freely offer companionship, wanting nothing in return but the joy of your company._

 ** _Not friends in general, Luna. Your friends in particular._**

 _Oh – but I find it's important to start from the basics, don't you?_

 ** _Just because I never_** ** _had_** ** _friends doesn't mean I don't know what they_** ** _are_** ** _. You may safely assume I am familiar with the basic concept. I simply never appreciated companionship when I was surrounded by the tedious crush of humanity day in and day out._**

 _No need to get snippy, Tom._

 _Ne'er t'was meant an insult to be/ but simple truth 'twixt I and thee._

 ** _What's that from?_**

 _The Tale of Parallax and Quincey. It's a comedy with a tragic ending. You wouldn't have heard of it, I expect. It was after your time and before Ginevra Phyllis'._

 ** _I… see._**

 _Anyway, I was_ _saying_ _… Friends are strange, and my friends doubly so, for they have chosen to be friends with myself, and though the teachers say I am lacking in focus, head in the clouds, I see clearer myself and the world around me than ever they've suspected. The hat was, as I think you said, right about me. And so it stands to reason that anyone who offers companionship in exchange for strange company is a bit odd themselves._

 ** _Reason of a sort. Perhaps they consider you entertaining._**

 _I hope so. I consider them entertaining. There would hardly be any point if I didn't._

 ** _True enough._**

 _So, Aerin Mae is a friend, and Lilian Grace, her sister, too, though not so good a friend as Aerin Mae. Hermione Jean is a friend, but only now and again – I think she finds it difficult to understand me, and therefore does not want to spend much time with me. She does not like not understanding. Mary Elizabeth is Hermione Jean and Lilian Grace's friend first, and everyone else's second. Well, not everyone. But all the people she counts as friends come after Hermione Jean and Lilian Grace. Ginevra Phyllis, your Ginny Weasley, and I were friends of a sort, by default, I suppose, before school. I do not know if we still are._

 ** _How can you not know if you are friends with someone?_**

 _Well, we grew up together, companions of one another for lack of anyone else. But I don't think that she would choose to spend time with me had she an alternative. I am better than no one, I think, in her mind, but I don't think she likes me. I have not seen her much at all since we started school. Only in classes, and there she is with the other Gryffindor girls._

 ** _Does that bother you?_**

 _No. Should it?_

 ** _I don't know. Perhaps you never thought of her as a friend, either, then._**

 _Why do you say that?_

 ** _Is not jealousy of one's friends' attentions something that is inherent in the idea of belonging to one another?_**

 _No, silly boy. You're thinking of love. And I suppose it's true, some people are the sort to love their friends, or some of their friends. But mine and Ginevra Phyllis' was a friendship of convenience, or perhaps an arranged friendship – not a love-match._

 ** _Tell me about the others, then. Are they friends of convenience, or "love-matches," as you will?_**

 _Hmmm… I think almost all friendships begin as a matter of convenience. It is difficult to love the unknown, for most people. Although for some, the unknown is their first and only love, of course, and reality an unwanted intruder in their fantasies._

 ** _So do you hold some affection for these girls, or not? Aerin, Lilian, Hermione, and Mary? You still haven't told me anything about them at all, except their names._**

 _I am fond of Aerin Mae. I would be sad if she suddenly disappeared from my life. It is only appropriate, as I suspect she holds a similar degree of affection for myself. Lilian Grace, Hermione Jean, and Mary Elizabeth are interesting, but Lilian Grace is wary of me, and Hermione Jean does not understand, and Mary Elizabeth's trust is hard-won. They have little affection for me, and so I find I haven't any for them. If they were to vanish, I shouldn't think I would mind, much._

 ** _Do you not like them, then?_**

 _Oh, no, I enjoy their company. It is interesting to see the world through their eyes. But there is no bond between us to be broken, truly. Even with Aerin Mae, who might one day be a friend of the heart, the bond is young and weak. To lose it would be disappointing, but not a shattering hardship._

 ** _I… see. But who are they, as people?_**

 _You can't tell, but I'm laughing. Why should you think I can answer that for others, when I can't answer it for myself? Surely I know more about myself than any of them._

 ** _Can you tell me about them, then? The way you told me about yourself, and I told you about the boy I used to be?_**

 _Of course I can._

 ** _Will you?_**

 _Most likely._

 ** _…_**

 ** _What are you waiting for?_**

 _I am trying to decide what to say. I shall return when I've decided._

 ** _Just say whatever comes to mind. Perhaps start with the one you know best._**

 ** _Luna?_**

 ** _Damn it._**

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

 _Tom? I'm back._

 ** _Oh, good. You left before I could say to just tell me anything that comes to mind. You could start with the friend you know best, and go from there, once you've got started._**

 _Hmmm… Aerin Mae, then. She is a Ravenclaw, though not very like myself, and in third year. She likes magical creatures, and was almost put in Gryffindor for being adventurous. She said the Hat decided on Ravenclaw in the end because she goes on adventures to learn things, not as an end in themselves. She is curious about the world, but doesn't see much past the end of her nose. If you put a mystery in front of her, it will consume her until she has solved it, but she won't seek it out. She likes to learn by doing things, more than by reading. She is very kind, and often helps me track down things when they wander off. She helped me explore the Castle, and Lilian Grace, Mary Elizabeth, and Hermione Jean before me. She is short for her age, but taller than me. Her hair is light brown, and matches her eyes. She has one older brother and one younger sister, both in Slytherin. Her parents don't care very much for their children. From what she has said, it sounds very much like they are consumed by their torvoluds, and so haven't much attention for anyone else. Sean Morris, who is three years her elder, looked after her and Lilian Grace when they were all children, but he has his own life now. She misses him. She reminds me of my mother, a bit. I think they would have liked each other, if they ever could have met._

 _Lilian Grace is Aerin Mae's sister. They are less than a year apart in age, but Aerin Mae is a year ahead in school, which makes Lilian Grace a second-year. She is a Slytherin, I think because she is very manipulative, much like yourself, and not for any other reason, though she has never said. She could have been a Gryffindor. The twillks like her almost as much as Mary Elizabeth, though she is more for adventure, and Mary Elizabeth for freedom. She is nicer than she likes to pretend. She hides behind sarcasm and snarky comments, but she will help you if she has no reason not to. I think she is afraid that she doesn't belong in Slytherin, because she likes people too much. She is strong and tall for her age, and is a reserve chaser for the Slytherin Quidditch team. Her hair is a pretty reddish gold, and her eyes are hazel. Her parents and brother are the same as Aerin Mae, though from what I can see, Lilian Grace cares less for their lack of affection than Aerin Mae._

 ** _Why do you insist on using middle names for everyone?_**

 _Because they are every bit as given as the first, and so should be celebrated alike. More practically, they distinguish between people as well as the last, without the muddle of Houses and family and history dragged along. But mostly just out of habit. My mother did, and so I do as well._

 ** _Very well. What are your friends' surnames?_**

 _Moon. Why do you ask?_

 ** _Curiosity. Please, continue._**

 _If you insist. Hermione Jean is a Ravenclaw and a Granger, second year, and thirteen already as well. If Aerin Mae is curious, Hermione Jean is serious. Her family are muggles, and her approach to magic is … ravenous. She reads all the time, on every subject. I think she doesn't really_ _see_ _people, even when they're standing right in front of her. She thinks all the answers can be found in books, which is why she doesn't understand me, and so doesn't like me much. I think she will grow out of it eventually. Daddy always says that the school sorts too soon, because people change a lot as they grow up. Hermione Jean could have been a Gryffindor, because she always wants to do the right thing, but I think her friends have made her more Slytherin. She thinks the means are always justified, you see, and knowledge is meant to be used. If she were a muggle, I think she would be a mad scientist._

 ** _What's a mad scientist?_**

 _They ask if a thing can be done and try to do it, and never ask whether it ought to be done. Like the Americans at Miskatonic, but with muggle sciences._

 ** _Ah, I do recall an incident with an atom bomb…_**

 _What's an atom bomb?_

 ** _Like a muggle Killing Curse for whole cities. The Americans dropped two of them on Japan a few years after I was made._**

 _Yes, that sounds like mad science. Anyway, Hermione Jean rushes into things. She's probably the smartest girl in Ravenclaw, but that won't help her if she never stops to think. She is about average in height, with light tan skin but very poofy brown hair, like maybe she is part black. I've never asked. Both her parents are dentwists? Muggle tooth healers._

 ** _Dentists._**

 _Yes, that._

 ** _And the last one? Mary Elizabeth?_**

 _Mary Elizabeth is difficult to describe. I know as much as anyone about her, but I do not know her personally as well as I do the others._

 ** _You told me the first time we spoke that I reminded you of her._**

 _Yes, well, in some ways you do, and in others, not at all. You are the Slytherin who is clever and pushy, manipulating people to get what he wants. You, or the boy who was you, had ambitions, elsewise I suppose you'd never have thought to make this memory diary. But you don't have friends, and you would give up a chance at happiness in Hufflepuff to go where you think you really belong. Mary Elizabeth… she said something similar, once. That her life would have been easier in Gryffindor, and happier in Hufflepuff, but that she went to Slytherin because she_ _was_ _a Slytherin, and didn't need a talking hat to tell her so._

 _Slytherin is for the ambitious, and the cunning, and those who would put their own goals first, and do what they must to meet them, yes?_

 ** _Yes… but… Slytherin is also for survivors. The self-reliant. It wasn't mentioned much outside the House even when I was alive, but ambition and self-reliance come first. Striving for power, selfishness, cunning, manipulation, and ruthlessness serve those two. Striving for excellence and networking follow ambition. Independence follows self-reliance._**

 ** _…_**

 ** _When I was a student… some Slytherins were sorted because they wanted to be great, or shared several of the lesser values of the house. Few had a specific ambition at the age of eleven. More of us were put in Slytherin because we had learned to fend for ourselves early in life. Even many of the heirs to the Old Families were taught not to rely on anyone from a young age. The fact that they were also raised to be politically minded and reasonably ambitious was secondary._**

 _That explains more than it doesn't. I was going to say that Mary Elizabeth was sorted because what would be a very Hufflepuff goal for anyone else is for her an ambition which will require a certain amount of selfishness and cunning to achieve, but now…_

 _She was, I think, sorted because of her independence and self-reliance, more than her ambition._

 ** _What is her ambition? Why is it not Hufflepuff for her?_**

 _So far as I can see, she wants to be exceptional… but normal. Not special. And it's not Hufflepuff because Mary Elizabeth is Mary Potter, the Girl Who Lived._

 ** _You're friends with Mary Potter? Ginny told me some of her story._**

 _What do you already know?_

 ** _She was born in 1980, and somehow defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort on All Hallows' Eve, 1981._**

 _She told you his name?_

 ** _It took a while, but yes, in the end._**

 _I'm surprised she knows it. Most wouldn't. Daddy says they're scared, a left-over habit from the War, when it was Taboo to speak it, but adults don't say it._

 ** _I haven't much to fear, anyway, I should think. I'm a book, and your War was after my time, remember. Where was I? A killing curse rebounded from Mary Potter, destroying Lord Voldemort. He may or may not be dead, depending on who you believe. Both of her parents died that night. Her father was Lord Potter and her mother a muggleborn of no account._**

 _A muggleborn, yes, but daddy says she was scary and brilliant in the War. Mummy did the same kind of magic, making new rituals. But mummy worked on healing mostly, and White Arts. Lily Potter, he says, did a bit of everything, and tweaked the Powers' noses, too. He says she was a tragic hero, and if she hadn't died young, she would have lived long enough to see herself become the villain._

 ** _… Be that as it may… Mary Potter is a second year, sorted into Slytherin, which was a great upset at the time, because everyone expected her to go into Gryffindor as the Child Champion of the Light. She proved that she belonged in Slytherin by setting a venomous snake on the Heir of Malfoy, who had been bullying her. Since then, most within the school have treated her like any other Slytherin, while most outside the school are unaware of the incident. Ginny only learned of it after one of her housemates irritated the girl so much that she started hissing at him in public._**

 _Yes, that would be Creevey. He kept trying to get photos of her. He nearly made her crash in her Seeker trial, from what I understand, and she was very upset._

 ** _So it's true? She's a Parselmouth?_**

 _Oh, yes. It's a beautiful language. I've asked her to teach me what she can, but unfortunately I just can't manage some of the scent-based aspects of it, and the trills and chirps are beyond me. But I can say "greetings" and "moon snakeling" with the modifier that refers to oneself, which she says is the closest translation of my name._

 ** _…_**

 ** _Ravenclaws_** ** _._**

 ** _…_**

 ** _You are certain Lily Potter was a muggleborn? And the girl is definitely Potter's child?_**

 _Daddy says so, but I've told you already that certainty is an illusion. She was Lily Evans, before she married._

 ** _Hmmm… That does_** ** _sound_** ** _like a muggle name…_**

 _And Mary Elizabeth looks much more like the Blacks than Lily Evans. I suppose it is possible she was the last Sirius Black's child, but James Potter's mother was a Dorea Black, anyway, so if you're looking for the source of the Parsel-trait, it wouldn't matter much._

 ** _Indeed. So Mary Elizabeth Potter is the Heir of Slytherin?_**

 _Oh, no, I don't think so. She has alibis for all of the attacks so far._

 ** _Attacks? What has that got to do with her being the Heir?_**

 _Didn't Ginevra Phyllis tell you anything about what's going on in the school?_

 ** _No, what's happening?_**

 _I can't say now. I have to go! Charms started four minutes ago, and I only just noticed. I'll be back soon._

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

 _Tom?_

 ** _Hello, Luna._**

 _Hello. Professor Flitwick gave me detention for being late to Charms, so I haven't much time to write. Where were we?_

 ** _You were going to tell me about some sort of attacks, and what they've got to do with the Heir of Slytherin._**

 _Oh, yes. On Halloween, the caretaker's cat was attacked during the Feast. She was petrified, and left hanging from her tail from a torch bracket, with a painted message:_

 _The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware._

 _Some people thought it was a joke, at first, but then Creepy Colin Creevey, a muggleborn from Gryffindor, was petrified a week later, and the Gryffindor ghost along with a Hufflepuff muggleborn called Justin Finch-Fletchley were petrified just before Yule. Well, the boy was petrified. The ghost just kind of went all dark grey and smoky and froze. Nothing more has happened since I've been writing to you._

 ** _So someone_** ** _calling_** ** _himself the Heir of Slytherin is attacking muggleborns, ghosts, and cats, but it's not Mary Potter, even though she does speak Parsel and_** ** _is_** ** _probably the Heir, because she has an alibi?_**

 _She does for the first two attacks. She found the third one, but Lilian Grace says that serial crimes are almost always the same person, and this would be hard to copy-cat. I think she reads too many muggle novels in the summer._

 ** _Fascinating. What else is known about the Chamber?_**

 _Well, the Slytherins are saying it was opened fifty years ago, or thereabouts. A girl, Myrtle Phelps, died. Some Slytherin prefect claimed to have caught the monster, then, but obviously he didn't, if it's active again. It would have been about your time, I expect. What do you know of it?_

 ** _I don't think I ought to say._**

 _Why not?_

 ** _I wouldn't want you to think poorly of me._**

 _Why would I think poorly of you?_

 ** _It_** ** _was_** ** _around my time, and… well… I was the prefect._**

 _So what happened? And why ought I to think poorly of you?_

 ** _Well, you see… after that girl died, Phelps, I discovered that another student was keeping an acromantula in the castle. I framed him as the Heir of Slytherin and used his "capture" to expand my influence from Slytherin to the rest of the school. It wasn't him, obviously. Acromantula venom is an acidic paralytic. It may give the appearance of petrification, but only for short periods of time, before the acid starts to dissolve the tissues. The only reason it worked at all was the authorities were desperate for a scapegoat, and since the alternative was closing the school… they chose to remove the acromantula and its keeper, and hoped that the real Heir would take the opportunity to disappear._**

 _I would be upset that you framed an innocent acromantula for the crimes of the Monster of Slytherin, but they are rather dangerous to keep in a school. The attacks stopped then?_

 ** _Yes. That was right before OWLs, but the school stayed open, and there were no attacks the next year._**

 _Did you ever find out why?_

 ** _We thought, in Slytherin, that the Heir might have graduated, or else got nervous when they threatened to close the school. That was never the point, after all._**

 _What was?_

 ** _Well, the story goes that the Monster was left by Slytherin to cleanse the school after he was gone, not to destroy the school entirely._**

 _Yes, there are still people here who think that. But the Slytherins I know say that the Monster was left to protect the school, not to kill muggleborns._

 ** _I suppose they are saying that Slytherin was a mudblood himself, and feared that the muggleborns would betray the school to their muggle families?_**

 _Something like that. They don't use the m-word. It's not nice, and breaks the Truce. Did your Slytherins fight about it too?_

 ** _They did. History can be such a divisive topic. There are certain documents in the Slytherin House Library that certainly imply it. But they say nothing about the purpose of the Creature, nor what it is. The Chamber is mentioned as existing, but there's nothing on why it was created or how to access it. There is every possibility that the Monster, or the Heir, interpreted the task of protecting the school to mean removing muggleborns from it, or trying to scare them away._**

 ** _…_**

 ** _Then again – and this was only ever whispered quietly in the privacy of one's own rooms, at the time – it is possible that the Heir simply considered attacking muggleborns to be politically expedient back then, what with Grindelwald expanding on the continent, and it didn't matter what Slytherin would have wanted. I've no idea what he (or she) might hope to gain now. But it does seem likely that your Heir had help from my Heir in finding the Chamber. None of us knew where it was, and I would imagine most of your Slytherins have no idea either._**

 _An interesting suggestion. Very Slytherin. I will have to suggest it to the others._

 ** _Leave my name out of it, if you would._**

 _Why? Do you not want credit where it is due?_

 ** _No, I just would rather no one ever knew that the boy I used to be framed that other boy as the Heir. It was a rather foolish and short-sighted plan, and for all that it worked, it is embarrassing to me now._**

 _Hmmm… I suppose I could say a flittering told me._

 ** _What is a flittering?_**

 _You, but I needn't say your name._

 ** _... Okay._**

 _A rose by any other name would still be Tom. Ta for now. Detention calls._

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

 _Hello, Tom_

 ** _Hello, Luna. What is the date today? I realized that I never asked you last time we spoke._**

 _Eleventh February. How are you today?_

 ** _I'm fine. Yourself?_**

 _Approximately as content as the average day. Nothing's gone wandering all week, which is nice. Are you sure you're fine? From what I've gathered, that is what one says when one is not fine at all. Daddy was 'fine' for a whole year after Mummy died._

 ** _I suppose I'm … worried. About Ginny. I haven't spoken to her since before you found me, and since we were talking about friends, I've begun to suspect I haven't been a very good one to her._**

 _How not?_

 ** _Well, she confided an awful lot in me. She spent a lot of time writing. I don't think she had many other friends. And… I suppose I feel I ought to have made more of an effort to get back to her._**

 ** _…_**

 ** _…_**

 ** _Luna?_**

 ** _I just realized how that sounds._**

 ** _It's not that I haven't enjoyed talking to you immensely, and I understand that you have things to do other than talk to me. It's just that I don't know why or how I was separated from her to begin with, and I don't want her to think I've abandoned her. I should have asked you to return me to her long before now, if only to make sure she's okay._**

 _I understand._

 ** _Luna, it's not that I don't want to be friends with you as well, it's just that, well… I feel guilty for not thinking of her a bit more all these weeks I've been with you. Please don't be upset with me._**

 _I'm not upset. I'm preoccupied._

 ** _Oh?_**

 ** _…_**

 ** _Talk to me, Luna._**

 ** _You did have something in mind to say, did you not? Before I mentioned Ginny._**

 _Oh, that._

 _I told my friends that you thought the "Heir of Slytherin" must have had help finding the entrance to the Chamber, and they've been searching for it since. Mary Elizabeth and Lilian Grace especially have been spending an awful lot of time in the dungeons. Mary Elizabeth thinks they might get lucky and find a passage from the Slytherin dorms, since they go everywhere else. Aerin Mae and Hermione Jean have been looking through genealogies again, trying to figure out who Slytherin's heirs could be. The house proper went extinct sometime in the 1600s, apparently, though there was at least one cadet line until recently. The last "Heir" seems to have been Morfin Gaunt, but he died in Azkaban decades ago, and never went to Hogwarts. None of the Gaunts did, for at least four generations before Morfin._

 ** _Fascinating. And there are no other families with a history of the Parsel-trait?_**

 _None that have been recorded, at least in Europe. I'm wondering exactly how the Monster recognizes an heir of Slytherin. We think it might be a basilisk, by the by. Did I tell you? There aren't many beasts that live so long, after all._

 ** _Don't basilisks kill with a glance? And their venom is entirely destructive, not paralyzing._**

 _Only its direct gaze is deadly. Meeting its eyes in a reflection, or through a ghost, who knows? Aerin Mae agrees that it might be only petrifying, like a gorgon._

 ** _So you think that perhaps speaking Parsel alone is enough to recognize an Heir? If the Monster is a giant sentient snake?_**

 _Possibly. There are families in India that speak it, and it's not entirely impossible to learn, though if you don't have the Parsel-trait, Mary Elizabeth, Aerin Mae and I think you would have to learn human transfiguration to make yourself an Organ of Jacobson and the proper sounding-chambers._

 ** _What's that?_**

 _The Organ of Jacobson is the scent/tasting organ, and Aerin Mae says real snakes sometimes have different shaped sinuses to make different sounds, like dragons._

 ** _Interesting. Dragons don't speak Parsel, though._**

 _Are you sure? The only one Mary Elizabeth has ever tried to speak to was an infant._

 ** _Even the youngest hatchlings of sentient serpents speak Parsel, though it sounds like babbling and nonsense. Lizards and dragons and other reptiles don't. Why was your friend trying to speak to a dragon?_**

 _To stop it from burning the house down around her ears, of course._

 ** _Why_** ** _… Never mind. I'm not going to ask._**

 _How do you know so much about Parseltongue? I don't think I've ever heard anyone but Mary Elizabeth call it Parsel, you know. Do you speak it? Are you the Heir of Slytherin?_

 ** _Of course not. There used to be a book in Slytherin's Library on the language. I read it when I was a student. It's a fascinating topic. There's been some debate over whether it's actually a "trait" as such, and not an inherited curse. But if there are speakers in India, perhaps it is a trait after all._**

 _Hmmm… I'll have to tell Mary Elizabeth to look for it. I'm sure she would find it interesting as well._

 ** _Is that what you were preoccupied about?_**

 _Oh, no. Professor McG and I got into a flaming row over the role of terabees and midichlorians in Un-Transfiguration. She more or less told me that she wouldn't stand for 'any more such nonsense' in her classroom, and I walked out. I'm positive that terabees are the defining factor in maintaining the original sense of thing-ness within an object, even in cross-planar interactions, which allows it to revert to its natural form when the power-instability snaps. Daddy says humans have midichlorians instead of terabees, because we're living. So in order to do an un-transfiguration, you not only have to determine the arithmantic opposite of the transfiguration, you also have to find a way to stimulate the terabees of a thing to find the true form of the original object._

 ** _That… makes a surprising degree of sense… You're just about six years ahead of the theory curriculum and using completely different vocabulary._**

 ** _I'm fairly certain though that your Transfiguration professor was looking for an explanation involving the Basic Wand Movements._**

 ** _First years aren't expected to know anything about cross-planar interactions, and she almost certainly wouldn't have heard of terabees or midichlorians before. The principles are the same as what I learned, but Dumbledore never talked about them as though they were zoomorphic entites. He called terabees the Object Identity, and it was imbued into every aspect of a thing by the creator of the object (which is why worked objects are harder to transfigure) or by the natural processes of its becoming, for things like rocks. Midichlorians were an aspect of the Life Spark, which infuses every cell of a living creature, connecting them together and defining their being on a fundamental level._**

 _Why couldn't she just_ _say_ _something like that then?! It's so frustrating. At least Professor Flitwick doesn't mind the way I explain theory, even if I can tell he doesn't believe me about wrackspurts or sonderpips existing, or the Nargles stealing my things. McGonagall is my least favorite teacher._

 ** _If it's any consolation, I'm sure you're not her favorite student either._**

 _Why would that be a consolation?_

 ** _I didn't really expect it to be._**

 _So you want to go back to Ginevra Phyllis?_

 ** _It's not so much that I want to, as much as I think I ought to._**

 _Hmmm… I suppose I ought to let you, then. I'll slip you in with her books in Astronomy tonight, and let her think you made your way back, just like you wandered off in the first place._

 ** _Thank you, Luna. And who knows, perhaps I'll wander back into your life someday._**

 _Don't be silly, Tom. Everyone knows books don't_ _actually_ _sprout legs and wander away._

 _Well, most books._

 ** _Everyone could be wrong. But even so, farewell, Luna, until we meet again._**

 _Goodbye, Tom._


	15. Madness

**[A/N: Chapter 11 Part 2**

 **Trigger warning: attempted suicide**

 **Ginny's first term is basically a horror movie.]**

* * *

September 1992 – Thursday, 11 February 1993

["Help me, Tom! I think I'm going mad…" In which Ginny's life story is revealed, all out of order.]

"Who are you?" The book had written, and Ginny wrote back, sealing her fate.

Ginevra Phyllis, "Ginny" Weasley was the youngest of seven children, and the only girl. She had a very hard time thinking of herself outside of the context of her family, which was fair, because she had never been apart from them. She lived with her mother and father and any number of brothers in a ramshackle farmhouse which had been built up and added-on-to over the years with more magic than architectural integrity, defying physics and all rational principles of engineering. There was never a time when she was not aware of Hogwarts, and it was her greatest desire in life to go there, like her brothers and cousins and parents before her, and get away from her overbearing mother and muggle-obsessed father and the farm and the too-familiar muggle town of Ottery St. Catchpole.

Ginny's father, Arthur, was the youngest son of the Lord Weasley, neither the heir nor the spare, nor even the third son, but the fifth. His eldest brother, along with the third and fourth, had died in the War, like Molly's brothers and her baby sister, Alice, who was as good as dead. But Arthur's second-eldest brother had two grown sons of his own, and House Weasley never had much money anyway, at least not compared to the Blacks or Malfoys or even the McKinnons, so Arthur and his family were on their own, so far as making their way in the world went. Arthur had been resigned to this at a young age. He had never expected to have to support a family of nine, but when his Hogwarts sweetheart had gotten pregnant at the age of twenty, just at the start of the hostilities, he squared his shoulders and got a job at the Ministry, and offered to make an honest woman of her. They were married three months before their first son was born.

Ginny's mother, Molly, was a housewitch of the first order, and had no greater ambition than to raise a happy, healthy family. She was a Prewett, before her marriage, and her temper was legendary. Arthur and Molly were, in many ways, or so it seemed in the beginning, perfect complements to each other. Where she was fiery and tempestuous and demanding, he was calm and easygoing and giving. He was often an overgrown boy, always playing with his muggle gadgets, an inveterate hobbyist, while she was normally the epitome of a responsible matron (even if she was twenty-one and pregnant at her wedding). As the eldest child of four, with three mischievous younger siblings and rather neglectful parents, she had become rather strict at a very young age. Arthur helped Molly relax, and she managed their household, keeping the family together and out of the goblins' hands at the end of the day, if only just. She was the loving mother, while he was the somewhat absentminded, beloved father. Somewhere along the line of their lives together, however, these differences which seemed so complementary at the beginning of their marriage became points of contention and strife.

When Ginny was very young, she couldn't remember her parents arguing at all, though she asked Bill once after he moved out, and he said that was because before he graduated, they made sure to keep their "little talks" outside, away from little pitchers with big ears and their fragile, under-enchanted home. By the time she left for school, Ginny thought it was clear they still loved each other (if only because that was the only explanation for why they were still together), but they probably shouldn't be left alone in a room together for more than a few minutes.

The year she was home alone with them was the worst year of her short life to that point, always tense and strained. It always came back to money in the end. Molly worried about their finances, while Arthur resented her for growing into a nagging harpy. He said that she should get a real job of her own, if she was so worried about the money, and she raged about how being a mother was a real job. He told her the kids didn't need her full time anymore (which Ginny agreed with), and Molly retaliated saying that no one had ever needed him, and his job was a joke, or sometimes just threw plates at him. She spent her time in the house and the garden, and he spent his at work or in the shed, tinkering with his muggle bits and bobs. Molly and Ginny ate dinner alone, with Arthur's food left under a stasis spell. He only came in when he knew the coast was clear. When the kids were all home for the holidays, their parents made a show of getting along like the perfect family, but thought they never talked about it, all the children (except maybe Ron) knew how things really were.

Ginny wasn't certain she would ever forgive Ron for leaving her alone with them while he went off to Hogwarts a whole year before her.

The only reason the house hadn't collapsed under its own weight and the periodic explosions from her parents' arguments, or from the twins' room (when they finally got their own room) was that her eldest brother, Bill, spent every spare moment whenever he was home carving tiny glyphs and runes into the walls, enchanting it to stay upright. Bill was Ginny's favorite brother, but then, he was everyone's favorite brother except Charlie. He had started school the year Ginny was born, and graduated when she was seven, although she thought he must have started enchanting the house before then, because she couldn't ever remember a time when he hadn't sat quietly for hour on hour, meticulously marking out the runes in chalk and charcoal before carefully carving them and filling them with magic, tying their home to the land and fields and the river Ottery. He did the same thing for a little wardcrafting company most days of the week back then, but he said he always saved his best work for his family.

When she was nine, her second-oldest brother, Charlie, graduated as well. Charlie and Bill never got along. They were rivals, Ginny thought, in a way, before all the others had come along. She knew him least well out of all of them. Charlie decided long before he graduated that he was going to work in a dragon sanctuary, and moved to Romania that same summer. Later that year, Bill came home with an earring, and the news that he had gotten a job working for Gringott's as a cursebreaker. He was off to wherever they might send him, seeking out exotic adventures. At the time, Ginny thought that he had been trying to compete with Charlie, whose job was, by definition, awesome. In hindsight, though, it might have had more to do with the also-recently-graduated Nymphadora Tonks rejecting his proposal of marriage. Regardless of the reason, Bill was very good at cursebreaking, and along with enchanting the house, he had made a habit of sliding his father a cut of his paycheck, without which Ginny was almost positive they would have lost the house at least once. Her parents didn't know that she knew.

Percy was who Ginny always thought of when anyone mentioned the idea of an older brother. Bill was _so_ much older he was like an uncle or a cousin, and she had never really been around Charlie much. Percy was the oldest brother she could actually remember before he went to Hogwarts when she was six. She never liked him much, even back then. He was always too serious and responsible and swotty. He looked around their little tumbledown house, and saw a life he was ashamed of. He was, she thought, terrified to end up with a life like his father. It would never happen, of course. He was too much like their mother, without her absurd fantasy of having an enormous (perfect) family. Bill and Charlie were much more like their father in personality, but Percy was driven. The twins with their chaos were the bane of his existence, though Ron had followed him around more than he had any of the others when they were little, and for the first few years after Percy went off to school, whenever he was home for the hols.

Ginny had spent more time with the twins before Hogwarts than with Percy. They were troublemakers, Fred and George. Molly had a habit of calling them by her dead brothers' names, Fabian and Gideon. She said they got the Black sense of humor from Molly's mother, which was why their jokes were a little cruel sometimes. Ron had followed them around, too, once Percy left, and the four of them became much more rough-and-tumble than they ever had been when Percy was there to keep them in line, roaming the nearby fields and scrubby woods in search of trouble. If Ginny had to pick who among her brothers she was most like, she thought it was probably the twins. Molly said she was more like Aunt Alice than the boys, if Aunt Alice had been allowed to run wild for half her childhood, but Ginny knew that wasn't true.

From her mother's stories, Aunt Alice was the good girl, nice and kind, with the Prewett temper, but a bone-deep love of justice and fairness. She had been a true Hufflepuff. Ginny, on the other hand, knew herself to have a mean streak, and the same cruel sense of humor as the twins. She fought and played as hard as any of the boys, and her temper drove her not to justice, but revenge. Her mother only _wanted_ her daughter to be like the little sister she had lost. It didn't matter at all to Molly that that simply wasn't Ginny.

Ginny was quite certain her childhood could be divided into two parts: The early part that she didn't remember too clearly before Percy left, where things were much more controlled around the house, and her parents never argued; and after Percy left, when it seemed like Molly stopped trying to control her children at all, letting the twins run wild and drag Ron and Ginny after them in their madcap adventures. Even Bill's return didn't make up for Percy's absence – he was a grown-up, and had work and things to do besides run after them and ruin their fun all day.

The twins went to Hogwarts when Ginny was eight, after two years of running wild with the boys. Molly tried, then, to break her youngest children to the pureblood manners they would be expected to have in the world outside their little homestead, but she was too late. Ron had so many bad habits at nine that it wasn't worth the trouble of trying to mold him into a young gentleman, and Ginny was even further from being a proper young lady. Tomboy might have been an understatement. Their mother had settled for teaching them the "Three R's" and sent them out of the house after lessons so that she could do whatever she had become accustomed to doing all day. For another two years, Ginny and Ron had been the only kids in the house, most of the time. They were, because of that, Ginny thought, closer to each other for those two years than to any of the others. The twins made jokes about their youngest siblings becoming more alike than themselves.

That, perhaps, was why Ron's going off to school felt like so much more of a betrayal than it had when any of the others left. Or perhaps it was the fact that she was certain she was smarter and more mature than Ron, and that if he could go, she ought to be able to go as well. Or perhaps it was that, in hindsight, Ron leaving was the point where her perfect childhood, full of adventure and freedom, began to go to hell.

The 1991-1992 school year was horrible for Ginny. Her mother tried to trap her in the house every morning, giving her chores meant to make her practice the more feminine arts: re-hemming Charlie's old school robes by hand, or making dinner, or tending the kitchen garden. When Ginny refused, or ran off halfway through or after doing a terrible job, Molly yelled at her and lectured for hours on how she was a disappointment as a daughter. Yelling back about how unfair it was that the boys never had to do anything like this never seemed to help.

By October, Ginny had taken to sneaking out at five in the morning to steal one of the boys' old brooms and fly in to town (making sure to land and hide her broom well away from any muggles) or to the Lovegoods' or the Diggorys', or to anywhere in the countryside that wasn't home. She had never spent so much time alone before, and she hated it. She missed a lot of meals that year, but she thought it was worth it to avoid being told what a failure she was as a girl every time she turned around. Eventually the only rule Molly insisted on was that Ginny had to be present for dinner, so that she could be sure her youngest child hadn't died in the course of the day. Even receiving a Hogwarts toilet seat by owl post for her birthday from the twins didn't make it better (though her mother's reaction was very funny, as for once it was not directed at her).

Between the running battle between her mother and herself and the growing tensions between her parents, Ginny was pleased when she first heard they would be going to visit Charlie for Christmas. She was only slightly disappointed when she realized that she would not be going with her parents – she would still have time away from her mother, and perhaps they would receive a Christmas miracle, and the elder Weasleys would work out some of their problems.

It was not to be.

Ginny was shipped off to their nearest neighbors, the Lovegoods, to spend the holidays with the strange and unsettling Luna and her equally strange and offputting father, Xeno. She had visited them often over the fall, as she had nothing better to do, but she would much rather have stayed alone at the Burrow than been subjected to the Lovegoods' idea of holiday cooking.

When Molly and Arthur returned, they were angrier than ever. Arthur had let it slip that he had spent nearly two-hundred Galleons on a muggle automobile, which he had been hiding in his shed and tinkering with for months. When Molly asked where he'd gotten the money, he had been forced to admit that he had been holding back part of what Bill (and Charlie, on occasion) sent home to help their family.

Molly saw this as a betrayal of the highest order, and had threatened both Bill's and Arthur's lives if Bill ever gave his father money again. If he wanted to help the family (because God knew his father wasn't doing his part), he could send money directly to her. She went to Gringott's and opened a new vault, transferring all of the family's funds out of Arthur's control. She even refused to cook for Arthur, who spent the entire spring term exiled to his shed, sleeping in his precious "car."

Ginny felt a bit sorry for her father, but she couldn't help but think it had been a stupid thing to do, endangering their already perilous finances (not to mention his marriage) for his hobby. The atmosphere in the house was even more suffocating than it had been before the ill-fated Christmas Trip, and Ginny used even the slimmest of excuses to stay out of the house, spending nights with Luna Lovegood or Tabby Diggory or (when she felt she'd outstayed her welcome at the Diggorys' and couldn't stand any more looniness), saying that she was staying with one of her friends, while actually camping in the woods between her house and the Lovegoods'.

She was more relieved than she could say when the boys returned at the end of June, but that faded quickly. Everything had changed, over the past ten months.

The play her parents put on of being the perfect, happy family fell flat when she knew that her father had been kept out of the house for five months, and had only been allowed back for his sons' benefit. It was pathetic that they even tried anymore, and, though she was loathe to admit it, it hurt that they put in the effort to pretend for the boys, but not for her.

Percy disappeared into his room, and hardly ever came out except for meals. Ginny had to wonder if he knew about their parents' stupidity as well. Maybe Bill had written him. Ginny hadn't, and she doubted either of their parents would have mentioned it.

Ron was like a different person, and no fun at all. He didn't want to do anything with Ginny anymore because she was a girl, and younger than him, even though that had never mattered before. Neville Longbottom, who was Aunt Alice's son and Ron's friend at school, came over once or twice to spend the day with him, and _then_ Ron wanted to do all the things he said he wasn't interested in doing with Ginny, flying and exploring and even showing the fat little rich boy how to de-gnome the garden. Ginny spent the summer mostly not speaking to him.

She had followed the twins around instead, helping them with pranks, showing off how well she had learned to fly in their absence, and stealing Percy's wand so that they could teach her different jinxes and some of the first-year wandwork. The boys taught themselves how to drive the muggle car, taking it out for joy rides on the back roads around the muggle town. (Ginny wasn't tall enough to work the pedals, but the twins let her shift and steer sometimes.) With Fred and George, Ginny was almost able to pretend the horrible year never happened. Almost.

She never told any of her brothers how bad it had been, trying to survive their parents without them. They wouldn't understand, and it was over, now, anyway.

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Ginny's Hogwarts letter came in the middle of July, and her mother was appalled that they were expected to buy a full set of Lockhart's books. Molly loved the celebrity author, thought he was brilliant, and very handsome, but his books were more than a bit pricey. Ginny thought he was full of shite. She had already been resigned to getting most things second-hand. None of the old family wands worked for her, so they would already have to buy her a new wand, which meant used robes and books at least. But if they really did have to get a load of Lockhart's rubbish, she would be lucky to get a proper potions kit at all, even used. She definitely wouldn't be able to get a pet, even one as useless as Scabbers. Perhaps she could adopt one of the stray cats at Hogwarts.

They didn't end up going to the Alley for almost another month: Molly wanted to wait and get everything at once, and the boys' letters didn't come until August. On seeing Molly's expression when she realized that _every_ year would need the Lockhart books, Percy had called a family meeting for all the kids. The next morning, he and the twins offered to forego the overly expensive books altogether, and get them from the library or share with their friends as needed. Ron and Ginny would share one set with each other, since Ron didn't want to commit to mooching off Neville without asking him first, and Ginny didn't have any friends at Hogwarts yet. Loony Lovegood, who was the only girl Ginny knew in her year, would probably show up with a stack of Quibblers instead of her required texts. Molly had protested, but only weakly. They really didn't have the money for thirty-five DADA texts.

The trip to the Alley had been good-exciting at first, because it was always fun to go to the Alley – there were always interesting things to see, and the twins almost always managed to make some sort of mischief. Finally getting her very own wand (9 inches, willow and dragon heart-string) only made it better. Percy had run into Mary Potter with Catherine Urquhart in the Leaky Cauldron, so even he, who normally moped any time he had to be seen in public with his family, was in a good mood, puffed up with self-importance. He disappeared around lunch time, and Ginny thought she saw him walking with a curvy brunette girl on her way to the book store from Ollivander's.

Then, in Flourish and Blotts', the day had become bad-exciting, as Ginny's mother fawned over Gilderoy Lockhart and her father rose to Lucius Malfoy's taunts and picked a fight in the middle of the store. Books had been knocked everywhere, and all the Weasleys had been banned for life (or at least until the owner forgot he had banned them. The twins had been banned for life twice already). The shopkeepers looked like they wanted to ban Malfoy as well, but didn't quite dare.

When the family finally returned home, Ginny had packed all of her school supplies carefully in her trunk, setting it aside. She considered reading through her textbooks, but decided she probably wouldn't be expected to have read them by the first day. The last two weeks of summer seemed to drag on forever as she became ever-more-excited to go to Hogwarts. The twins told her all sorts of horror stories about the sorting, and she pretended to be afraid (but if Ron could manage it, it couldn't be difficult). Percy gave her all sorts of unwanted advice, and even Ron got in on the act, calling her ickle Ginny-kins for three days before she hit him with a Tripping Jinx that led to him getting bitten on the nose by a gnome. Her mother tried to take her aside at least four times to tell her something, but never seemed to quite spit it out, whatever it was, and her father patted her on the head absentmindedly more often than usual, though that might have been just because he saw her at dinner more often.

At King's Cross, Molly had wailed about her last baby leaving her, and Arthur had been publicly supportive, which Ginny considered a load of toss on both their parts. She was certain her mother was as happy to be rid of her as she was to go. The boys disappeared as soon as they reached the platform to do whatever it was they did on the train. Ginny had found a compartment with a bunch of other new first year girls, though Fred and George had come to kidnap her just before lunch, and dragged her off to meet Mary Potter. She had been quite embarrassed by their antics, though Mary and her friends seemed more amused than anything else, even the one who spent ten minutes telling the twins off for interrupting her reading. They had made small talk for a while, and then she escaped back to the other first-years, who wanted to know all about the famous girl.

She had been sorted into Gryffindor, even after telling the Hat that she wanted to be in Slytherin to spite her mother and Ron, along with eleven other girls and thirteen boys. The girls had an enormous room half-way up Gryffindor Tower. It was definitely larger than it possibly could have been, though Ginny didn't realize that until she woke up in the morning. She found a bed between Janine Abbott and Caitlin Morsette, neither of whom, she quickly realized, were the sort of girl she wanted to be friends with, though they quickly became friends with each other, and developed a nasty habit of talking past her.

The first class on Monday morning was transfiguration with their Head of House, which was exactly where things started to go _very_ wrong. If her life had been going to hell for almost a year already, that fateful class had to be the point where it jumped in a Gringott's cart and started flying down the rails, because that was where she found the Diary.

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The Diary had been tucked inside her Transfiguration book. The larger book was poorly bound, so she hadn't noticed the extra half-inch when she packed it away in her trunk. The journal itself was simple: black leather and rough-cut pages, clearly old, but never used, with the name TM Riddle embossed on the front. There were no composition lines, just page after page of thin, off-white, muggle paper. She had stuffed it in her bag and returned to her lesson with hardly a thought.

Lessons were not so difficult. Ginny's new wand was much better and easier to work with than Percy's, and she had managed most of the things they were learning already with his over the summer. The Potions professor was a greasy git, and Lockhart was a pastel-wearing ponce, but they were the only two who actually seemed to have expected the new firsties to have memorized their texts already, and only Snape had taken points away when he found that they hadn't.

The difficult part of Hogwarts, Ginny quickly found, was that out of the full dozen girls in her dorm, none of them wanted to be friends with her. She had never felt more out of place in her life than she did surrounded by giggling, boy-crazy, lace-wearing girls. They made fun of her for her hand-me-down jumpers and ragged, second-hand trousers and robes. They made fun of her for her used books, lazy pony-tail and loud voice, for her rude, boyish manners. They made fun of her for preferring to spend time with Zach Moray or Matthias Bumper than any of them, and the fact that she blushed whenever they pointed any of this out, her face clashing horribly with her hair. They made fun of her for not reading Witch Weekly, for not thinking that Cedric Diggory and Thom Atwell were "totes the cutest," for knowing the difference in Potions between flobberworms and earthworms, and for trying to avoid them at mealtimes by hiding with her brothers in the upper years. They called her a hick for knowing all about growing your own vegetables in Herbology, and a brown-noser for asking questions in class. The purebloods made fun of her for not knowing what she should as a pureblood, and the muggleborns made fun of her because of the little she knew about muggle gadgets like cars and televisions. She would have been better off, she soon realized, not admitting to knowing anything about muggles at all.

By the first Friday of the year, she wanted to go home. Her entire life she had wanted to get to school, to this place which, to her, represented the entire world outside her parents' house, but it was not what she had expected at all. Hogwarts itself could be the best place in the world, but she would prefer to be at the Burrow, alone forever, rather than deal with her dorm mates for another evening. She had hidden in the loo no one ever used on the second floor during dinner, sniffling and trying to decide if she was hungry enough to risk facing the other girls, when she knocked over her bag and re-discovered the Diary. And the second time, wanting nothing more than a friend to talk to, she had taken out a quill and started scribbling, writing down all the things she hated about school, and all the things she had expected, and wished it would have been, and how much she wished she could go home, or at least get out of Gryffindor, and how she really was the failure her mother had insisted all last year that she was, and why that mattered more than any of the rest of it.

And then… The Diary wrote back.

"Hello? Hello? Who are you?" it had said.

And Ginny, tears drying into salty streaks on her face, had answered. That, she thought, was the moment her fate had been sealed.

Tom had become her best friend and confidant. He gave her the courage she needed to face her dorm mates, telling her all about the world he grew up in by night, and listening whenever she needed to vent between classes.

He was born in 1926, and was raised in a muggle orphanage. He had been a Ravenclaw, he said, and had lived in Muggle London during a horrible muggle war he called the Blitz. He had to go back – he had nowhere else to go in the summers, but he had lived in terrible fear for his life. In 1943, he had made the Diary, a copy of his memories, just in case he didn't survive the muggle war, so that he would know he had left something behind. He said that he had written in the book for a while after he made it, but disappeared five years later, and never returned. The next time someone had written to him, decades had passed, and they told him Tom Riddle was dead.

Tom gave her pointers with her spellwork, and asked her about recent history. She told him all about the War, and the Dark Lord, and Mary Potter, whom she had met, albeit briefly. She told him about the family she had lost, and then the family who remained, and about her brothers and her cousin Neville and her crush on Colin Creevey who was far too excitable about everything, and ridiculously enthusiastic about the wizarding world, but so nice to her, even at the expense of his own popularity.

She told him about the attack on Halloween, and how she found a set of her own second-hand robes, days later, stuffed under her bed and covered in red paint.

She cried her frustration and anger at him when Colin was attacked the next weekend, her only living friend ripped away by the Heir of Slytherin.

She told him how she started to have blank spots in her memory, where she couldn't remember what she was doing, for hours, sometimes, and how she woke up from a very strange dream one night to find rooster feathers in her robe pockets and in her hair.

She told him how Percy was concerned about her, and kept telling her to go talk to Madam Pomfrey, and asking if she was eating alright. Tom sympathized with her, and encouraged her to sleep more, not to write as much, to try not to stress about her classes, to go and enjoy a Quidditch match now and then. He told her, insidiously, that maybe Percy was right… had she been eating properly, without her mother hovering over her? Perhaps she ought to go ask for a draught of Dreamless Sleep, and skip her spell practice, just this once. He was sure she would be fine, but perhaps it would be better if she took a "mental health day," because, after all, it was very trying to have to deal with her room mates, he knew.

Just before the winter holidays, there was another attack, a ghost and a student, and she could not remember where she was at the time. A horrible suspicion began to dawn. Her robes, with incriminating red paint all over them… Empty places in her memories at _just_ the wrong times...

At first she'd thought the stress of her first year was getting to her, and the robes were just her roommates, trying to frame her for the message, or playing some kind of awful joke. But what if it wasn't a joke?

She wanted more than anything for it not to be true, but she didn't remember where she'd been for any of the attacks, and there were the feathers, which were just _weird_ , but seemed to suggest she'd been doing _something_ she didn't remember, not just drifting off in the library or the commons, as Tom had suggested.

"Tom, help me," she wrote, desperately, hours later, unable to keep it to herself any longer. "There was another attack today, and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad! I think… I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!"

The boy in the diary had done his best to soothe her fears, but even his cool logic – "You can't be the Heir of Slytherin, Ginny. Your family's not even related to Slytherin, are they? You're a Gryffindor. The Heir of Slytherin wouldn't be a _Gryffindor_. Besides, you don't know anything about the Chamber of Secrets…" – was not entirely able to wipe away her panic. Eventually he had settled for convincing her not to do anything rash. If it wasn't her at all, it wouldn't do for her to turn herself in.

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Almost everyone went home for the holidays. Ginny, along with her brothers, stayed. Fred and George said something about wanting to give Auntie Muriel a special gift, which she could only assume was the reason her mother had told them all to stay at school. Either that, or she didn't feel like putting on a show of high spirits and congeniality with her husband. The boys were off doing whatever it was they did all day. Percy mostly wrote letters to his girlfriend, who had gone home for the Hols, but Ginny had no idea where Fred, George, and Ron kept disappearing to. Ginny, left to her own devices, found herself in the library, where, to distract herself, she decided to see what information she could find on Tom Riddle's Hogwarts.

She started with a yearbook from 1945, the year Grindelwald fell and Tom Riddle graduated. She found, almost immediately and to her horror, that Tom Riddle had been a prefect, just as he had told her, but not a _Ravenclaw_ prefect.

Slytherin.

He had lied to her.

He had told her he couldn't lie, so that was twice. Who was to say what else he had lied about?

And a wave of cold terror washed over her as she remembered a bit of advice her father had given her, ages ago. "Don't trust anything if you can't see where it keeps its brain."

It was simple advice, meant to keep children away from Dark artifacts. Almost every pureblood child knew it, but Ginny, wrapped up in her new friend, had forgotten.

"What are you?" she wrote to Tom.

"What do you mean, Ginny? I'm your friend." If a book could sound hurt, Ginny imagined Tom would.

"Are you? You lied to me! You're not a Ravenclaw at all! How can I trust anything you say, when you said you couldn't lie to me?"

"Ginny, I…"

"No, Tom! What are you?"

"I'm sorry, Ginny! I'm a memory. A collection of memories. I've told you this. I'm a copy of a boy who used to be a Slytherin, yes, but… nobody trusts a Slytherin. I'm sorry I lied! I just wanted someone to talk to. I was so lonely… there's nothing here, no sight or sound, nobody to talk to, nothing to do. It's awful, being trapped in this book. I just… I was afraid you would leave me, throw me away. I need you, Ginny."

It took the rest of break and three more gaps in her memory for Ginny to realize that the Diary was the cause of her faltering sanity. She tried, then, to burn it, and then, when that didn't work, she stabbed it with her potions knife, dumped acid on it, and threw it out a window. The cut repaired itself before her eyes, and the acid simply sank into the pages like ink. She immediately regretted throwing it out the window, and dug around in the snow outside for ages looking for it. She couldn't leave it anywhere anyone else could find it. He had fooled her. He could fool someone else.

She thought she probably tried to get rid of it more often than that, because there were lots of little holes in her memory, where the infernal book had taken her over and stopped her, erasing whatever it was she tried to do.

He let her remember the futility of going to McGonagall or Dumbledore, or even Madam Pince, who ought to know all about cursed books, leaving her the memory of approaching them, and leaving, the diary safely in hand. She thought about throwing it in the lake, but it was frozen solid. She briefly tried leaving it in her room, but quickly returned to carrying it everywhere, no longer because Tom was her constant companion, but because it wouldn't do for the house elves to find it while they were cleaning, or for her brothers to come snooping around and find it and get sucked in before she could find a way to get rid of it.

He let her remember climbing the stairs to the Astronomy tower, her mind filled with determination to jump, to end his influence by ending her own life. He let her keep the note she had written, and it lay, folded in the bottom of her bag, a silent mockery when she reappeared in her own room, an indeterminate amount of time later, with no memory of how she got there. He let her remember the pain of slicing her own wrist with a potions knife, and the horror as he took over her body, healing the cut completely with her own wand and vanishing the blood from the shower stall. He had whispered inside her mind, "Stop trying, you stupid girl, it will never work. You are mine now, and I will not let you destroy this body." And she had stopped, for fear he would take her over and never give her back.

Finally, just after classes began again, in a moment of despair and utter madness, completely unplanned, she tried to flush the Diary down the toilet in Moaning Myrtle's loo, the place where the nightmare began. Surely no one would ever go into Myrtle's stall, and hopefully if they ever did, the damned book would be waterlogged and drowned, but she just couldn't take it anymore. She had to get away from it. She fled before the ghost could appear, before the Diary could realize what she had done and stop her. She managed, finally, to get far enough away that it could not force her to come back.

She told no one.

She did not want to be blamed for the attacks, and she told herself that no one had really been hurt. Colin and Justin would be un-petrified when the mandrakes were ready, and the Diary was gone, so no one _would_ be hurt.

It was a weak argument, but she was so worn from fighting Tom that it was easy to lie to herself.

She wanted to believe it.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Ginny was free of the Diary for almost a month. She threw herself into her second term schoolwork, ignoring the taunts of her classmates. If there was one thing, she thought bitterly, for which she could thank Tom, it was the fact that dealing with _him_ put all her fellow schoolgirls' jabs in perspective. What did it matter, that she was unpopular and "boyish," compared to the threat of her body being taken completely from her control? The worst the stupid girls could do was make her hate herself. Tom made her want to _kill_ herself, and then stopped her from managing it. She blocked her roommates out entirely, sitting with the other houses in their mixed classes and the upperclassmen at dinner. She barely noticed, anymore, when they called her name in their wretched, hateful voices. She hardly blinked when, one day in early February, the other girls moved all of her things, forcing her to change beds and sleep in the corner, as far away from the rest of them as they could put her. She would have sneered at Caitlin and Janine's overly-loud, overly pleased exclamations of delight at not having her bed between theirs anymore, but she found she couldn't be bothered.

She tried to focus on her studies, but in moments of weakness, her mind slipped back to Tom, wondering what he was doing, or if he had been found, or if he was dead. She hated him, and everything he'd done to her, and everything he made her do, but there was still some part of her (a rather larger part than she wanted to admit) that was a little bit in love with the boy in the book, the boy who had helped her through her first term, who had listened to her troubles with a sympathetic ear. The worst part was that Tom was the person she would have talked to about all this, if only he hadn't been the problem, and evil. Writing in a normal diary just wasn't the same.

She cried herself to sleep at night, quietly, behind silenced curtains, so that the other girls wouldn't notice. When she finally did sleep, she suffered hideous nightmares where she was bound and helpless, locked in a corner of her mind, while a tall, dark-haired boy directed her body all around her. She woke, shaking and nauseous, more nights than not, grateful that, at the very least, her terrors apparently let her stay silent.

Still, she must have looked or acted better than she felt, or at any rate better than she had when she had spent every spare moment writing to Tom, because Percy found the time to come and say encouraging things, like, "I must say, Gin, I'm glad you've finally started eating again. You were looking awfully peaked before the hols."

January became February, and Ginny began to heal, thinking of her tormentor less often and sleeping through the night a bit more. Some of her old fire returned. In the first week of February, she told Janine, loudly, in front of their entire Herbology class, to shut up about Ginny's family being so poor that they had to grow their own food, or Ginny would stuff the other girl's poblanos where the sun didn't shine. This had earned Ginny a detention from the appalled Professor Sprout, but it felt good to strike back at her tormentors, even if it was only verbally.

And then, in the second week of February, everything came crashing down around her again.

 _Ginevra_ , a young man's voice whispered inside her mind, _Long time no see._

Ginny startled so badly she almost knocked over her telescope.

"Miss Weasley?" Professor Sinistra asked, "Are you alright?"

Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but found she couldn't. After a brief hesitation, her lips and tongue moved of their own accord. "It's nothing, Professor," Tom said smoothly. "I just lost my balance for a second."

 _I hate you! Get out of my head!_ Ginny thought fiercely at the boy. She had the impression he was smirking at her.

"Okay. I know all too well that staring up for too long can make you a bit disoriented. If you get dizzy, do sit down. That goes for everyone. Miss Lovegood, let's see your chart…"

 _Is that any way to treat your only true friend?_ Tom responded mockingly.

 _I don't want to be friends with you! Go away! Leave me alone!_

 _Oh, I'd guessed that much, Ginevra,_ darling _. You tried to, what was it?_ Flush my Diary down a toilet? _Luckily it was found by someone amenable to persuasion, and so we have been united once again._

 _Who was it?_ Ginny was furious. She would kill whoever had brought the sick artefact back to her.

 _An old friend of yours, I believe, the "loony" Miss Luna of Ravenclaw?_

That checked her anger. Surely Luna wouldn't have gone along with Tom on purpose. She was just crazy. Ginny couldn't blame the mad girl for being fooled by the evil book. After all, she had, and she had a fully-functioning brain.

 _Miss Luna is no more insane than yourself,_ Tom said, sounding amused. _Certainly she is more resistant to my manipulations. I finally had to tell her I was_ worried _about you, poor girl, so alone and friendless. I didn't want to leave her, of course, but I felt it was my duty as a good friend, to check up on you. Surely she could find a way to let my Diary wander back to you, as it had wandered away in the first place._ He laughed, and it was a sinister sound. Ginny watched her hand mechanically completing the star chart.

 _I really don't think_ , Tom continued _, that I can allow you the chance to pull such a stunt as that again._

He must have felt her shock and anger as she realized what he meant.

 _Oh, yes, I think I'll be keeping your body for you, at least for a few more weeks. It wouldn't do to have you derailing my plans, after all._

 _You'll never get away with this, Tom! You bastard! Someone will notice! My brothers! The professors! They'll save me! They'll stop you!_

 _Oh,_ no _, love_ , he said silkily _, I don't really think that they will._ Go to sleep _, you foolish little girl. I'll run the show from now on._

And to her horror, Ginny found her consciousness retreating, following his order to sleep. She railed against it, but she was too tired – she couldn't fight it…

Ginny's body smiled. There was a lot to be said, Tom now knew, for having a body, even an unfamiliar, prepubescent, female body. He had never realized, before making his horcrux and cutting himself off from his own, but apparently it was the sort of thing one only missed when it was gone.

"What are you laughing at, Weasley?" a blonde girl snapped.

"Just your idiotic face, blondie," Tom said in Ginny's voice, his grin spreading even wider as he turned to look at her. "Tell me, do you _practice_ looking like an apologetic puppy recently scolded for incontinence, or does that expression come naturally to you?"

He collected Ginny's books and spun on her heel, leaving the speechless blonde behind him. As much fun as taunting Gryffindor children was, he had more important things to do, like getting the esteemed Headmaster (fucking Albus Dumbledore) fired, finalizing his plans to magically construct a body for himself, and tracking down his wayward alter ego.

Tom hadn't decided yet whether he would let his older self join him in his soon-to-be-constructed body. That stupid bastard had a lot to answer for, not least among them the state of his basilisk, who _used_ to be an intelligent creature, and the fact that he didn't come back to the Diary when he managed to blow himself up, and yet still hadn't managed to return by some other means in the past _eleven years_. On the one hand, he would have fifty years of knowledge that Tom didn't… but on the other, from all Ginny and Luna had said, he sounded like he had somehow lost his bloody mind, just as surely as the basilisk. Getting blown up while attacking his own apparent descendant? It was practically a fucking Greek tragedy. _Idiot_.


	16. Rerouting

**Chapter 12: Rerouting**

[In which the First Ever Muggle Parent Howler arrives at Hogwarts, and Valentine's Day is ruined for everyone, especially Percy.]

Sunday, 10 January – Saturday, 13 February 1993 Hogwarts

The first month back to classes after the winter holiday passed quickly and quietly, with two rather startling and extreme exceptions: the Hufflepuff-Slytherin Quidditch match, held at the end of January, and a previously unthinkable horror – a Howler from Emma Granger.

The Howler arrived on the very first day of term. At the beginning of it, Mary and Hermione thought that the timing was intended to cause maximum embarrassment, with an audience of recently-returned students. Unfortunately, as the red letter wore on, it became clear that this was not the _only_ intention. It was followed the next day by a much longer letter, which contained a full copy of the Howler as well as an explanation, "Because," in Emma's words, "I want you to be able to look back on my words and think about what you've done, and Miss Urquhart informs me that the Howler will burn when its job is done." Mary wasn't sure the follow-up letter was really necessary. She didn't think she was likely to forget any of Emma's major points, though she supposed she was grateful for the explanation of exactly _how_ a muggle parent had managed to create a Howler in the first place.

According to the longer letter, Emma had taken tea with Catherine over the holiday, and the witch had inquired after Hermione. It had come up that the girl was still at Hogwarts, and "Imagine my surprise when Catherine says to me, 'Powers, if it were _me_ , my parents would have had me out of there in a trice!' So of course I had to ask what she meant, as not one of you saw fit to inform me that students were under attack at your school. And then she said, in that coy, teasing little tone that says you've just lost face, 'You mean you didn't know? It's been all over the Prophet. My parents would have sent a Howler for sure if they'd learned it from anyone but me.'"

The second-years had heard Howlers before. They were the most common form of parental discipline at Hogwarts. The Gryffindor table received them at least once a month, most often from Mrs. Weasley, telling the twins off for their latest bit of mischief. Neville Longbottom had gotten one from his grandmother when he managed to lose a Remembrall in their first year, and one of the older Ravenclaws had been sent one at the end of the previous term, but she managed to capture it inside some kind of sound-proof bubble before it exploded, so no one knew what it had been about. Even Mary had been sent one, back when the Slytherins were tormenting her at the beginning of her first term.

Unlike most Howlers Mary had heard in the past year and a half, Emma's didn't shout. Yes, it was very loud, and clearly angry, but Emma wasn't the sort to _yell_. The voice captured in the letter was carefully controlled, deceptively calm, and worst of all, had a slow, American drawl to it to rival Professor Snape's most sinister tone. It began on a low note ("HERMIONE JEAN GRANGER, YOUR FATHER AND I ARE VERY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU! MARY ELIZABETH POTTER, WE ARE NOT PLEASED WITH YOUR DECISIONS THIS PAST TERM EITHER!"), and only got worse over the full five minutes of sound it contained, because not only were Hermione and Mary reprimanded for their failure to inform the Grangers of the goings-on at Hogwarts, but _so were_ _Professors McGonagall and Flitwick_.

She accused them of either being entirely without honor for breaking their word to her, or else clearly believing muggles so inferior that they needn't be informed when their children were clearly endangered at school, despite their written assurances that, should anything untoward develop, she and Dan would be made aware. ("I FIND IT DIFFICULT TO COMPREHEND HOW TWO SUCH INTELLIGENT INDIVIDUALS AS YOURSELVES FAILED TO RECOGNIZE CIRCUMSTANCES SUCH AS THOSE WHEREIN YOU EXPRESSLY AGREED TO INFORM MY HUSBAND AND MYSELF ABOUT ANY DANGERS TO MY DAUGHTER AT YOUR SCHOOL! I MIGHT HAVE EXPECTED AS MUCH FROM YOUR IDIOT HEADMASTER – YES, I KNOW ABOUT THE OBSTACLE COURSE AND THE DUBIOUS HIRING DECISIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN MADE IN RECENT YEARS – BUT I EXPECTED BETTER FROM _YOU_!")

By that point, Hermione had laid her head on the Ravenclaw table in shame. Both professors and the headmaster in question looked furious. Professor Flitwick tried (presumably) to silence the letter, but Professor Snape, openly amused, set some kind of shield charm around the smoking envelope, protecting its tirade from any magical meddling, and the Charms professor's spell was simply absorbed.

Emma threatened to pull Hermione out and have her sent to France for the remainder of her schooling ("YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE, MISSY, TO CONVINCE ME THAT HOGWARTS DESERVES YOUR TUITION, OR WE'LL BE SENDING AN APPLICATION TO MADAME MAXIME AT BEAUXBATONS!") and made it clear that the girl would be punished for lying regardless. ("PRESUMABLY THIS IS THE TRUE REASON YOU REFUSED TO SPEND THE HOLIDAY AT HOME! REST ASSURED, DARLING, YOU WILL BE PUNISHED APPROPRIATELY FOR YOUR DUPLICITY REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU RETURN TO _THAT SCHOOL_ IN THE FALL!")

By the end of it, the woman had even appealed to the students of Hogwarts to consider whether their professors had their best interests in mind. ("I AM RELIABLY INFORMED THAT THIS LETTER WILL BE HEARD BY THE VAST MAJORITY OF HOGWARTS STUDENTS. I ENTREAT YOU, CHILDREN, TO CONSIDER WHETHER THE AUTHORITIES AT YOUR SCHOOL HAVE YOUR HEALTH AND SAFETY IN MIND, ASKING YOU TO RETURN TO COMPLETE THE YEAR'S SCHOOLING DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE DONE _NOTHING_ TO STEM THE ATTACKS. DOUBTLESS YOUR PARENTS THINK YOU ARE SAFE – THAT THE PURITY OF YOUR BLOOD OR YOUR FAMILY'S HISTORY OF MAGICAL PROWESS WILL PROTECT YOU FROM THIS SO-CALLED MONSTER OF SLYTHERIN, BUT THINK FOR A MOMENT – HOW DOES THE MONSTER RECOGNIZE THIS HERITAGE? HOW CAN YOU BE CERTAIN THAT YOU ARE NOT IN DANGER OF AN ACCIDENTAL ENCOUNTER WITH IT, WHATEVER IT IS? TO SEND _ANY_ CHILD BACK INTO SUCH AN ENVIRONMENT WAS FOOLHARDY IN THE EXTREME!")

Mary couldn't decide whether to die of embarrassment, like Hermione seemed to be doing, or to bow to the invisible presence of Emma Granger for her audacity in addressing all the students, and shaming the professors and especially the headmaster. When the letter finally burst into flames, she stood in the silent hall, cleared her throat to thank Professor Snape for allowing them all to hear something that clearly needed to be said, and then physically dragged a very red-faced Hermione to their first class with Lilian's assistance.

Hermione had, of course, answered the Howler. Thankfully she asked Mary and Lilian to read her response before she sent it. Her first draft was furious that her mother had embarrassed her in front of the entire school. The second one, which her friends actually allowed her to send, included a sincere (or at least sincere-sounding) apology, an explanation that Hermione had been afraid she wouldn't be allowed to learn magic if her parents were worried about her safety, and at least three pleas to be allowed to stay at Hogwarts with her friends.

Iris got quite a workout carrying the Grangers' furious written debate the length of the British island over the next two weeks. Emma and Dan eventually agreed to let Hermione finish out the year when the girls put forward the argument that there had only been two attacks on students over the course of five months and with a student-body of several hundred, it was very unlikely that any of them was personally and individually in any danger. Plus, it wasn't like anyone had died. The professors had announced that the petrifications could and would be reversed once a few rare potions ingredients could be acquired.

The reaction of the other students to the Howler was mixed. Some students were appalled that a _muggle_ had managed to make a Howler, or dared to criticize the Great Albus Dumbledore. Some were impressed. The Slytherins in particular seemed to be torn between their horror at a muggle, any muggle, having any access to magic, and their admiration for the fact that Emma had publicly accused Professors McGonagall and Flitwick of being prejudiced against muggles (an accusation much more often leveled against their families).

No one knew what to make of the fact that Mary had also been reprimanded. On the whole, though, the predominantly negative attitude toward her within the castle shifted. Receiving a Howler was nothing if not a humanizing experience, especially when it came from your _best friend's muggle parents_. Surely the Heir of Slytherin could not be the same girl who sat stone-faced through such an ordeal, then immediately banded together with the (mudblood) girl who was the cause of her verbal punishment. She eventually – once the danger of the Grangers going to the Ministry to have Hermione removed from Hogwarts immediately had definitely passed – decided that the Howler was, on the balance, a good thing. At least people weren't wandering around obviously terrified of her anymore.

The Conspiracy took full advantage of the confusion and relative complacency of the returning students to question them as quickly as possible. The Slytherins attacked opportunistically, while the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors took a more structured approach, going after the oldest students in their respective houses first. It was soon established that none of the seventh-years (and probably none of the sixth-years either, though they still needed to catch the sixth-year Hufflepuff prefects) were responsible for the Monster.

On the last Saturday in January, which was also the morning of the Hufflepuff-Slytherin Quidditch match, Morgana, Perry, and Adrian managed to get Lockhart alone, and discovered that he was not behind the attacks. They also discovered, thanks to his drug-loosened tongue, that he didn't think he could petrify anyone if he wanted to. "I mean," he had said, "it's not as though I'm actually the wizard from my books." The questioning had been interrupted by one of the other professors before they could get him to admit anything which would result in his removal from the school. As Morgana assured Mary, however, if all else failed, they could slip him a bit of the truth serum at the leaving feast, and he would easily destroy his own reputation, effectively ruining his life _after_ Hogwarts.

The game, easily the highlight of Mary's month, was much more fun without the threat of a rogue bludger, but bitterly cold. Even the warming enchantments on the pitch could not entirely negate the chill in the air. Hufflepuff and Slytherin were well matched in their chaser coordination, but Fetch was a much better keeper than Alina Tufts and the Slytherins had the advantage of an active Seeker, so the Snakes were up by nearly three hundred points when, after two hours in the air, the snitch appeared not fifteen meters from Cedric Diggory. He caught it, of course. Mary was all the way down the pitch, in the middle of the scrum, distracting and disorienting the Hufflepuff chasers. She was a bit put out over it, but Flint and the rest of the team (and later the house) didn't seem to mind too much, since they had still won by a margin of 130 points. She had done her part in their plays, and when and where the snitch appeared was always a matter of luck.

After the Quidditch match, the Hufflepuffs, sore losers all, began trying to avoid the Slytherins even more than they already had been. Fred and George took the lead in questioning students, informing the other Conspirators two weeks later that they had finished questioning their fifth-years, and were half-way through fourth with no real suspects. The Ravenclaws were not far behind, and had started a rumor that the Monster of Slytherin was a basilisk. Their housemates had taken to checking around the corners of more deserted corridors with hand mirrors, just in case it was lurking about, but after nearly a month back to school with no sign of another attack, many others hoped the danger had passed.

It hadn't, of course.

Sunday, 14 February 1993 Hogwarts

On Valentine's Day, Mary and Lilian entered the Great Hall at lunchtime to find that the walls had been covered in lurid pink flowers and there was heart-shaped confetti falling from the ceiling.

"You don't think this is the pick-me-up the 'professor' was hinting about all last week, do you?" Lilian asked sarcastically.

"You know, I'm not sure," Mary responded in a similar tone before adding more seriously as they joined their table, "There's like a one in three chance the Headmaster has taken to interior decorating."

The other second-years sniggered appreciatively at this.

It turned out that Lilian was right. Lockhart matched the décor, and every other occupant of the staff table looked irate. When most of the students had finished their meal, the blond idiot stood and shouted to the hall, "Happy Valentine's Day!" There were a few giggles and more than a few sniggers from the crowd. "And may I thank the sixty-seven people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all – and it doesn't end here!"

He clapped his hands, and a dozen surly-looking dwarves marched into the Hall. Mary wondered how much the celebrity had to pay them to wear those fake-looking golden wings and carry those useless little harps.

"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" The idiot beamed, clearly oblivious to the fact that all of his 'cupids,' the staff, and half the students would appreciate it very much if he would just fall victim to the DADA Curse already. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a love potion!"

Professor Snape looked murderously at the students before turning his hate-filled gaze back to Lockhart.

"Or talk to Professor Flitwick about Entrancing Enchantments!"

Professor Flitwick, who had been in a noticeably poor mood since The Howler, cast a Silencing Charm at his nominal colleague, and left the Hall before anyone could say another word. Most of the students followed his lead before the gaping author could recover. Mary did note that none of the other professors seemed inclined to help Lockhart.

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"We should send a valentine to that third-year Hermione fancies," Lilian suggested as they made their way toward the library to meet with the Ravenclaw in question.

Mary was taken aback at this suggestion. "Who, Kirke?"

"Yeah, the Ravenclaw bloke."

"She'd be livid." Hermione hadn't mentioned the older Ravenclaw much since school started again. Mary wasn't even sure if she still liked him.

"So you think I should do it?" Lilian teased.

"No, send one to Gred and Forge from her instead."

"Ooh, you're right. That will be much funnier." With that, Lilian turned and ran back down the stairs to find the nearest dwarf.

Mary waited patiently for her friend to return, watching a painting of several dogs playing cards. The pug seemed to be winning.

"Okay, it's done! I told him he could say whatever he wanted, as long as it was from Hermione Granger to Gred and Forge Weasley. He said if he got to say whatever he wanted, he would even sing. I said yes if he would do it at dinner. This is going to be awesome!"

The Slytherins were still giggling when they reached the library. Their suspicious Ravenclaw friend immediately asked them what they had done, and was not at all reassured by their simultaneous "Nothing!"

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As the afternoon wore on, Mary grew less enthusiastic about their plan to prank the twins and Hermione. She had been accosted by no fewer than twelve valentine-carrying dwarves herself (all from virtual strangers), and after the first singing one, she had been kicked out of the library. She considered heading down to Slytherin, where at least the blasted things couldn't get to her, but decided to take a walk outside instead, because she didn't want to so obviously give in to the holiday-themed harassment. Hermione and Lilian opted to stay inside, where it was warm, so Mary was alone and slightly late as she returned to the castle for dinner.

She came in through her favorite side-entrance, the one at the bottom of North Tower, which led directly to a spiral stair that came out on the fourth floor behind a tapestry of an erumpet. She would, of course, have to make her way back down all the stairs to the Great Hall for dinner or to her common room, but the view from the window at the top of the hidden stair was worth it. She wasn't in a hurry, anyway.

She was making her way across the third floor to the Main Staircase when she heard it: a voice, sibilant and deep, speaking from somewhere out of sight. _Rip…tear…kill_ , it hissed. Mary shuddered. She didn't know how she knew, but there was something about that voice that said the speaker was larger and more powerful than she. _Hunt the scent…_

It was moving away, down, somehow. Mary sprinted toward the stairs, desperate to warn whoever the snake was hunting – what if it was headed to the Great Hall? But she was trapped waiting for a moving staircase, and by the time she made it to the first floor, it was too late: she tripped over the frozen body of Percy Weasley, his glasses fogged and cracked, lying, unexpectedly, halfway out of an abandoned classroom, just off the Entry Hall.

Mary picked herself up off the floor, wiping her scuffed palms on her robes, and made her way to the Great Hall. She would be damned if she would be found standing over the body again. No. She would report it, before anyone else had a chance. No one would think she had done it if she were the one to draw attention to it, right? She hoped so, as she made her way along the Hufflepuff side of the Great Hall and slipped up behind Professor Snape's chair at the Head Table.

"Sir," she said, voice shaking only a little, "There's been another attack."

The potions master and the astronomy professor froze before turning to her. "Miss Potter," Professor Snape drawled, as quietly as he could, "Who and where?"

"Percy Weasley, sir. Just outside the Hall."

"Aurora?"

"I'll take care of it." Professor Sinistra excused herself from the table, and ghosted out of the hall nearly as unobtrusively as Professor Snape might have done.

"Go wait in the Annex off the Entry Hall, Miss Potter," the man ordered, before gliding down the table to talk to Professor McGonagall. Mary did as she was told, barely registering the laughter of the hall as a tone-deaf dwarf croaked out a ballad of love to the Weasley twins in Hermione's name. She looked back when she reached the doors to see a very white-faced Professor speaking intensely to the boys in question. They stood as one, each moving toward one of their younger siblings as she watched.

"This is not the Annex, Miss Potter," a dry, silky voice came from behind her.

She jumped. "Sorry, Professor!" She followed as he led the way to the room in question. Prefect Weasley's frozen form had been removed already – to the hospital wing, she presumed, by Professor Sinistra. They were joined moments later by Professor McGonagall and all four of the remaining Weasleys.

The Little Weasel was the first to speak. "What's she doing here?"

"Ron," "don't," the twins said, but before they could continue, Professor Snape cut them off.

"Miss Potter is the one who reported your brother's condition," he said smoothly. ("She probably did it!" the boy objected, but he was ignored.) "Minerva, shall we take this to your office? I imagine you will need to floo Mr. and Mrs. Weasley."

"Yes, yes, at once," the older witch said, clearly shaken.

She led the way, the Weasleys crowding close to one another for comfort, with Professor Snape and Mary trailing along behind. Little Ginny was crying openly, her twin brothers' arms wrapped around her shoulders. Ron kept shooting suspicious looks back at Mary.

She swallowed hard. It was clear she wasn't welcome. The Weasleys should be together as a family, now, she was sure, and she didn't want to intrude, anyway. She very much wanted to ask why she had been told to come along, but on second thought decided that it would probably be best to stay silent until she was asked to speak.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Molly Weasley, Mary decided, was the most terrifying person she had ever met, including Professor Snape, Gryffindor-Mary's Uncle Vernon, and an angry Emma Granger. She was loud and emotional and in every conceivable way _too much_. She came through the floo in Professor McGonagall's office, and threw herself bodily on her sons and daughter, hugging them close and demanding repeatedly to know what had happened to her poor Percy without giving anyone time to explain.

Mary followed Professor Snape's lead, finding a convenient shadow in which to lurk. Both he and Mr. Weasley, a thin, jittery-looking man who trailed along behind his wife, gave her approving looks. It took some time, including an argument over a quick trip to the infirmary for all the Weasleys (which they didn't end up having), but eventually the family was settled on an enormous conjured sofa, and the professors called Mary forward to explain how she had found Percy's body.

She told them everything, from coming in through the side passage to hearing the snake to trying to warn everyone but getting stuck on the stairs, then tripping over the prefect's body and immediately informing Professor Snape. Ron was still angry with her, and the twins were giving her a terribly haggard look. Ginny stared at her hands in her lap, silent and clearly miserable. Mrs. Weasley questioned her story fiercely, but Mary was not responsible, and had nothing to hide. No detail changed, and after the third retelling, Professor Snape dismissed Mary to fetch Professor Dumbledore, and then return to the dungeons.

She did so at once, afterward recounting the story one more time to Lilian and the other Slytherins assembled in the common room. Chaos erupted as the purebloods and half-bloods who had thought themselves well and truly protected by their heritage or family names realized that, blood traitors though they might be, the Weasleys were as pure as anyone. The Conspirators met each other's eyes, silently affirming that would end this – find out who was attacking everyone, and put a stop to the madness.

Monday, 15 February – Sunday 11 April 1993 Hogwarts

Morale at Hogwarts hit an all-time low as news of the latest attack spread like wildfire. The Board of Governors removed Dumbledore from the school (and Draco was only too pleased that his father had been the one to organize that particular political maneuver). Hagrid was taken away to Azkaban, the wizard prison, because, as it turned out, he had been accused of opening the Chamber the first time, and the Ministry wanted to be seen to be doing _something_. Hermione told her parents about the latest attack, and reminded them that all her arguments for remaining at school were still valid.

Two days after Percy was petrified, Fred and George cornered the second-year Conspirators in the library, a haunted look on their identical faces, to reassure them that, although their brother's attack was a shock, they would still do their part for the Conspiracy. They _would_ get to the bottom of this business – if anything, it was now an even higher priority, because the Heir had just made things personal. The girls nodded seriously and made quiet, reassuring, confirmatory sort of noises. It had never crossed their minds that the boys wouldn't follow through.

The fearful attitude of the wizard-raised Slytherins spread to the rest of the school within the week, and whispers arose that if even purebloods weren't safe, they would have to close the school. Students began to disappear from the Great Hall as the more protective parents called their children home. Mary wondered what had changed, to make them so suddenly wary, until she realized that they truly had thought their children safe, just because of their bloodlines. She hadn't realized until then exactly how little even the most progressive wizards cared about muggleborns. It was disgusting. She tried to talk to Professor McGonagall about what would be done, but the Deputy Head – Acting Head, in Dumbledore's absence, was far too busy to reassure her about the likely fate of the school. This was probably, as Lilian cynically pointed out, because the Professor didn't know herself.

The other houses began treating all Slytherins as absolute pariahs, much as they had done to Mary after the Creevey attack, and their coldness toward Mary herself, as their only reasonable "suspect," reached levels she hadn't seen since the week before the winter holiday. The Slytherins, who only knew that no one in their own house was guilty, and only knew that insofar as they trusted Professor Snape, became extraordinarily suspicious of everyone and anyone, and organized a buddy system to provide alibis for each other, should another attack occur. The Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors stopped going anywhere alone. Only the Ravenclaws seemed largely unaffected, spouting the same arguments Hermione had used about the probability of attack and going about their usual business, though even they had begun to pay slightly more attention to their surroundings.

The rumors of a basilisk spread, to the point that a Ministry investigator showed up a week into March to look into the claims. She found no sign of such a beast, though the students muttered darkly that _of course she wouldn't_ – it obviously lived in the Chamber of Secrets, and no one knew where the damned thing was! Compact mirrors became ubiquitous among the students, who made a habit of checking around every corner any time outside of the normal passing periods between classes, when the corridors were filled by the entire student population.

Lockhart's classes became even more of a joke and a waste of time than usual, until Zacharias Smith cracked one day, and told the bloody idiot at the front of the classroom that if he wasn't going to teach them anything worthwhile, he ought to just shut up and let them read things that might be useful. Lockhart told him that he could shut up or get out, and the boy left, followed by every single student in the classroom. From that point on, the second-years went to the library during their DADA time slot, and practiced transfiguring roosters (which no one could quite manage) and mirrors, just in case. None of the _real_ professors had the heart to force them back into Lockhart's classroom.

Outside of classes, the ten conspirators did the only thing they could: they buckled down and continued with their plan, hoping desperately that the school would stay open (on Mary and Hermione's parts), that the revival of the petrification victims would go smoothly (on the Weasleys' part), and that everything could soon go back to normal. Day after day passed, with no official word on closing the school. Classes were held as usual. Easter drew near, and there were no more attacks.


	17. Premature Denouement

**Chapter 13: Premature Denouement**

[In which Tom Riddle fails to stall, and there are many roosters.]

Monday, 12 April 1993 – Ginny's Birthday 

_Fred Weasley_

Fred and George Weasley would be the first to tell you that they didn't exactly take life seriously, most of the time. They would also probably be the first (and only) people to tell you that they were, in fact, capable of being incredibly serious when the situation demanded. This whole Chamber of Secrets business was one of those times.

It was almost a pity that they could never tell Percy about their efforts to thwart the Heir of Slytherin. The look on his face would be simply too perfect. They could just imagine that he would be torn between appalled horror (because they had managed to (so far) illegally question every Gryffindor from seventh-year down to second) and pride (because they were, in fact, trying to save the school with their mad inter-house scheme). They couldn't tell him because he would immediately tell their mother that they had drugged him with Veritaserum along with everyone else (and because he was now petrified, anyway), but it was nice to imagine.

Since Percy had been petrified (and wouldn't he just be pissed to be missing out on half a semester of NEWT classes), the Gryffindors had become much more paranoid about things like going around alone, especially the younger students, which had made it increasingly difficult to catch them off guard for a half-hour of clandestine questioning. The twins had managed, like the Slytherins and Ravenclaws, to get through most of their allotted upperclassmen in the month between the start of classes and the Valentine's Day attack, but over the past two months, their progress had been slowed considerably.

The Ravenclaws just took to carrying hand-mirrors around and went on with their normal routines, arguing that there had only been three attacks so far, and it was highly unlikely that any one of them in particular was in any danger. The Hufflepuffs had already been moving in groups, ever since the Creevey attack, which was why the Slytherins had gone after them – they had the greatest numbers and most coordination, and anyway, Professor Snape had already _legilimized_ their entire house – it wasn't any of them. This meant that there had been no appreciable change in the other two groups' rates of questioning, and the last of their target houses had been cleared in the first week of April. But Fred and George, who had been in the lead before Percy's attack, clearing all of their seventh-, sixth-, and fifth- years (and most of fourth), had taken nearly a month to capture the few remaining fourth-years, and it was only when the students started to relax their vigilance in mid-March that they had managed to make any headway with the third- and second-years.

Now it was the Easter so-called 'holiday,' and they were determined to finish clearing their first years before the end of it. At this point, it mostly seemed like a formality, anyway. None of them really thought that a first-year Gryffindor was the Heir. The Slytherins were considering whether they might have another Quirrellmort situation on their hands, and debating whether to interrogate the professors. (They already had done Lockhart, and managed to get enough incriminating evidence on him to get him fired at the end of the year, if fate didn't intervene and kill him off in the meanwhile, but he was innocent of being the Heir of Slytherin.)

"You've got the list, Fred. Who's left?"

Fred consulted the roster off of which they had been slowly crossing students all semester. "Cod, Firstie Dunbar, Epps, Frank, Moray, Otharsonne, Puckle, Samuels, Singh, Tarvec, and Ginny. Oh, and Barrie, looked like she was crossed off there, but that was Bumper."

George groaned. "Otharsonne, Puckle, and Barrie all went home for the holiday anyway. Let's start with Ginny. At least she should be easy to get alone."

"Yeah. Fair enough. And it'll be a nice birthday present, right?"

"What, ask her to help once she's cleared? Very thoughtful."

"Well they've got to be more willing to trust another firstie, right?"

"Hmmm… I suppose our reputation does precede us, never mind we haven't done much this year."

"Yeah, so. Gin Gin, then?"

"Right-o."

Fred nodded. He pulled the Map out of his pocket and activated it, quickly locating their only sister moving toward Gryffindor from the direction of the Great Hall and the Library.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Ginny, unlike most other students in the castle, was not likely, the twins thought, to tell on them for pulling her into an empty classroom and just forcing her to drink the damn truth serum. It wasn't as though something similar didn't happen at least once or twice every summer, and she had never gotten them in serious trouble yet. That was, therefore, exactly what they did. On intercepting their favorite younger sibling on the fourth floor, they simply threw their arms around each of her shoulders, and ducked into the currently-out-of-use Muggle Studies classroom.

"Hey, guys," Ginny said, somewhat tiredly. "What's up?"

"Nothing, nothing," Fred began.

"We just wanted to wish our favorite,"

"Only,"

"Sister,"

"A happy birthday."

"Really?" Ginny's face lit up a bit at that and she pulled them into a hug. "Thanks. I thought everyone had forgotten, what with Percy and all…"

"Of course not!"

"We would never!"

"We even got you a present!"

"But first you have to drink this," Fred pointed at George, who already had the dose of Veritaserum uncorked and was poised to pour it into Ginny's mouth.

Ginny looked around in confusion, making it halfway through the word 'what?' before George poked the vial into her mouth and upended it, three carefully measured drops falling onto her tongue.

"Oh, come on, that's not funny!" Ginny objected, her face going a bit slack as the potion took effect. "What was that stuff?"

Fred carefully seated his sister in the nearest chair before saying, slightly pink, "Veritaserum."

"Why did you give me a truth potion?" the girl asked, her eyes wide.

"Because, Gin," George answered, "We need to know anything _you_ know about the Chamber of Secrets."

At that, their sister clapped her hands over her mouth and tried to make a break for it. The boys, momentarily stunned that Ginny apparently knew something, let alone something important that she clearly wanted to keep secret, just barely caught her. They returned her to the chair, tying her down with an Incarcerating Jinx.

They abandoned the list of questions the Slytherins had written for them without conscious decision.

"Ginny," Fred said, his tone deadly serious, "What do you know about the Heir of Slytherin?"

"I-It's me!" burst from her lips, followed instantly by tears. "I'm the one who's b-been at-tack-king every-one."

"What?" The twins spoke as one. "Why? How?"

"I-I-It's t-true! I didn't want to! I don't want to! He m-makes me! I don't know h-how. I n-never re-m-member," she managed to choke out between her sobs.

"Who makes you?" George asked. Fred was still stunned.

"Tom. Tom R-Riddle."

"Who's Tom Riddle?" Fred asked, just as George said, "How does he make you?"

They stared at each other in astonishment, unable to remember the last time they had spoken over each other.

"He's my diary. I don't know how, but he's somehow m-making me attack people. He – he takes over m-my body, and – and then I don't remember any – anything. And when I wake up, there's b-been another at-attack." She was rocking slightly now. "All my fault, it's all my fault, Percy, and C-Colin, I didn't know! Wh-when I f-found out, I t-tried to s-stop him, but I _couldn't_. I c-couldn't even – couldn't even k-kill myself. I got rid of him and Loony brought him b-back!"

"Ginny, do you know where the Chamber of Secrets is?" Fred asked slowly.

She nodded slowly before the potion forced the word past her lips: a very small, whispered _yes._

"Where is it?"

"Under the school. I see it in my nightmares."

"How do you get there, Ginny?" George was impatient. If they could get in, they could kill the basilisk and the attacks would stop, and they would have plenty of time to stop whatever bastard was possessing Ginny.

"I-I don't know. He n-never lets me remember that p-part."

"It's alright," George said, petting her hair softly. "It's going to be okay. We'll get you help, now. Fred?"

Fred nodded. This part of the plan was the same as it ever was – if you find the Heir, find a Slytherin, and they would help explain the situation Snape, because there was no way he would believe a Weasley twin claiming to have caught the Heir. And now, it was Ginny, and she was being possessed? …Maybe Snape wasn't the best choice – but then, who in the school knew more about Dark Arts? He went to find a Slytherin.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Fred walked quickly, nearly running through the halls. Mary was closest, in the library and, strangely, alone. Hermione was in Ravenclaw with the other Ravens, and Lilian was outside with Zabini and Greengrass. Fred dismissed the issue. He only needed one Slytherin to act as an envoy to Snape.

"Mary," he shouted as soon as he entered the library, heedless of the squawking librarian and myriad angry Ravenclaws glaring at him over their "break" essays.

She looked around, struck by the most unusual sight of a lone Weasley twin barreling toward her.

"Mary, I need to talk to you!"

"Out! Get _out_ , you red-haired menace!" Madam Pince intercepted him, shoving him back toward the doors. "You too, Potter! I'll not have your friends coming in here looking for you and making an unconscionable _racket_!"

Mary gathered her books and quickly followed Fred out of the library. He pulled her behind a nearby statue. "It's Ginny," he said without preamble.

"What's Ginny?"

"The Heir! Ginny's the Heir. She's being possessed or something. Georgie's waiting with her up on the fourth floor. We didn't want to try moving her with just the two of us, like we talked about, but she's tied up."

Mary nodded grimly, immediately understanding the problem. "So you need me to help you take her to Snape?"

"Yeah, that's the plan, more or less." He pulled the Map from his pocket again, compulsively checking on his siblings. "Oh, shit!"

A dot which should be sitting safely in a fourth-floor classroom was making its way down the main staircase.

"What?!"

"Look!" Fred pointed. "We don't have time to get the others. Ginny's escaped. We have to follow her! No, wait, we need to get George and make sure he's okay, and _then_ we need to follow her! Come on!"

He grabbed Mary's wrist, and, ignoring her protests, dragged her through the same hidden passage he had just traversed, up two flights of stairs, and back to his fallen twin. Ginny was on the second floor, now, headed toward what looked like the girls' loo. He shoved the map into Mary's hands, ordering her to watch Ginny, and revived George, hauling him to his feet.

"What happened?"

George spoke very quickly. "I gave her the antidote and was looking for that fucking diary and she started whimpering and came over all funny, and I was like, Gin, are you okay and she smiled at me all creepy and said, 'Not Ginny, try again,' and then _hissed_ and the ropes disappeared like some kind of _finite_ , and she pulled her wand on me and I hesitated because _it's Ginny_ , right? And she stunned me."

"Guys? She's stopped outside Myrtle's Bathroom… Oh, wait, now she's going inside… She just… disappeared? What diary are you talking about?"

" _The_ diary," "Tom Riddle's diary." "The diary that's possessing Ginny!"

"Did you say… Riddle? … _Tom_ Riddle?" Mary was going very pale. George nodded, but Fred was more interested in the fact that Ginny had "disappeared" from the map.

"What do you mean she's disappeared? You can't disappear from the Map!"

"Well, she did," Mary shoved the parchment back at Fred. "She was in the second floor girls loo, and then she just vanished. It's definitely _Tom Riddle's_ diary that's possessing Ginny?"

"Who the bloody hell _is_ Tom _Fucking_ Riddle?" George asked.

"The Dark Lord," Mary whispered. "Voldemort."

Fred felt like he was going to faint. George grabbed a desk for support. "The bloody fucking Dark Bastard is possessing our little sister?"

"We have to get down to that bathroom _right now_."

"Guys, just _think_ for a second, alright? We can't fight him! She's safe – he's got to be possessing her for a reason, he wouldn't just kill her. We need to get Snape!"

"Fuck it, Potter, you _can't_ just disappear from the Map!" Fred knew he sounded like he was about to cry, but he didn't care.

George elaborated when he saw the blank look Mary was giving his twin. "She could be _dead already_! WE NEED TO CHECK THE BATHROOM!"

"Fine, it's on the way, but _then_ , we need to _find Snape_!" But it didn't really matter what she was saying, by that point. George was already out the door, with Fred hot on his heels, and the only thing she could do was follow.

 _Mary_

Mary raced out of the fourth-floor classroom, following the twins. She had no intention of following the Dark Lord wherever he had taken Ginny, but it wouldn't hurt to check the bathroom before continuing down to the dungeons and Snape. The three of them skidded to a halt just inside the loo, looking around frantically. Nothing seemed to be out of order.

Moaning Myrtle, the most irritating ghost in the castle, poked her head out of her stall. "What do you want? Boys aren't supposed to be in here."

"We're looking for," "Our sister!"

"Red-head, about her height?" the ghost said, nodding at Mary.

"Yes!" "Ginny!"

"She's been coming in here all year, and every time, she's so rude, always banishing me back down the pipes!"

"She just came in here," Mary said. "Did you see where she went?"

Myrtle gave a dramatic huff. "No, I stayed quiet in here so I wouldn't get _banished_ again!"

"Did she say anything?" "Or do anything?"

"I don't see why I ought to tell you anything!"

"Please, Myrtle!" "She's been possessed!" "She's going to die," "If we can't save her!"

"Oh, right, she's going to _die_! What a _tragedy_!" And with that the selfish teenage ghost disappeared through the back wall of the bathroom.

"Myrtle, you fucking bitch!"

"Fred…" George laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"No, George! We're not going back! Ginny needs us! We didn't notice she's been fucking _possessed_ all year. We have to find her!"

George nodded, and then rounded on Mary. "So if I were Slytherin, how would I guard a Chamber of Secrets?"

Mary flinched away from his sudden attention. "I don't know! Put it somewhere no one would look!"

"Girls' loo. Check!"

"Guard it with a giant, sentient snake?"

"Basilisk. You're not helping!"

"Well, the only other thing I can think of is all the tunnels and passages to the commons answer to Parsel…"

"Parseltongue password!" "Brilliant!" "What would it be?"

"I don't know! All the ones I know of are just 'open'!"

"So fucking try that!"

"Where?! You have to give it to the door!"

"Just say it really fucking loud!"

Mary slapped her palm to her face. She _highly_ doubted that would work, but if it meant she could go find Snape and get real help…

 _open_ she hissed. Nothing happened. _I command the way to the Chamber of Secrets to_ open _!_ she demanded, feeling incredibly silly to be standing here, in the middle of a bathroom, yelling the walls in Parseltongue. "I'm sorry, Fred, George, I just don't think –" but a sudden light near the sinks drew her attention. One of the taps was spinning and glowing brightly. Its sink disappeared into the floor, revealing a large, slimy pipe.

Mary stared at it in amazement. "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

The boys exchanged a look, and then they turned to Mary with identical sad but determined smiles. "We're going down there," one of them said.

"Okay, I'm going to get Snape," she replied, but they shook their heads slowly.

"You're coming with us."

"No, I'm not. I'm going to get the only person in the castle who could possibly actually fight the Dark Lord, and he can go save your sister."

"There's no time for that."

"Ginny could be dying down there."

"Or organizing another attack – a fatal one this time."

"There's a _basilisk_ down there! And your sister is being possessed by an evil psychopath! We are _not_ going down there!"

"We can handle the basilisk. Roosters, remember?"

"And you have to come – what if there's more doors?"

"NO! This is the Dark Lord we're talking about. You're being _stupid_!" Mary turned to leave, not even considering that her friends – or at least she had considered them friends until now – would hex her in the back.

Her wand jerked itself out of her pocket, flying to one of the boys. "We're sorry about this, Mary," he said, as his twin cast, _"Incarcarious,"_ and ropes burst from his wand, tangling around her torso.

"You're fucking _kidnapping_ me to the Chamber of Secrets, rather than wait half an hour for Snape to get here?" she asked incredulously.

The twin who had bound her nodded. "A lot can happen in half an hour."

"You're insane. You're both _fucking_ insane." _Close_! she added, hissing at the sink. "Close, damn you!"

The twins looked a bit panicked as they realized that she was trying to cut off their way forward. One of them silenced her, and without another word, jumped into the pipe, screaming all the way down to wherever it ended. Then his voice floated back up to them: "It's okay, Fred! Send Mary down. I'll catch her."

Mary glared impotently at Fred, and he gave her a nervous smile. "Sorry, Mary." He levitated her over the gaping pipe, and then she was falling, sliding. There were other pipes branching off from this one at odd angles, twisting and turning before leveling out. The slime-covered ropes killed her momentum, dragging her to a stop. George was nowhere to be seen, and she could hear Fred banging down behind her. She tried to yell for help – he was going to run right into her – but she was still silenced. The best she could do was try to wriggle around so he wouldn't kick her in the head.

He got her shoulder instead, impacting with enough force to push both of them to the end of the pipe and out into a damp stone tunnel, much like the Slytherin dungeons, but, if Mary was any judge, at least two levels deeper. She lay on the floor, glaring at the boys. Apparently under the impression that it was no longer necessary to keep her bound, silenced, _and_ wandless, given that they had accomplished their task of getting her into the danger zone, they freed her.

"I can't _believe_ you two! Fucking lunatics! You're going to get us all _fucking_ killed! Give me my wand!"

"You're not going to hex us, are you?"

"No, you bloody idiot, it's _dark_ , I'm covered in fucking _slime_ and my glasses are broken! We're in enemy territory! I'm not going to waste time hexing you!"

The Weasley who had been holding it handed back her wand. She immediately sent a Stinging Hex at him before repairing the frames of her glasses and using the Siphoning Charm to suck all the muck off herself. It coalesced into a ball the size of her head, which she flicked at the other boy. Both twins dodged, complaining that she'd said she wouldn't hex them.

"I lied," she said scathingly, lighting her wand and lifting it high and peering around the tunnel. It wasn't like she had hit him. There was no obvious way out. There weren't even any little passage-markers like in the dorm tunnels. There were, however, torches, set into the walls at intervals. " _Lucernae!_ " she ordered, but they remained unlit. The boys were peering at her through the gloom in confusion. "Oh, honestly," she said, looking from one to the other, "You don't think the dungeons are always lit, do you?"

"Try Parseltongue," one of them suggested.

 _Light_ she hissed, and the torches burst into flame.

"Seems to be a theme," the other boy said with a grin.

"Oh, come on, you smug bastards. I don't see a way out, so we might as well look for the bloody Dark Lord."

"So you're with us?"

"It's not like I really have a choice, is it?" she spat, stomping off down the tunnel. She got a perverse pleasure out of the sound of small animal bones crunching under her favourite boots.

The boys followed behind her quietly until they came across an absolutely _enormous_ snakeskin lying curled across the tunnel. It was at least twenty feet long, poisonous green in colour. Mary approached it carefully, and nearly wet herself when a cockerel crowed behind her.

She spun around to see the twins' heads poking around the last curve, a pair of roosters posturing at their feet. "What the hell?"

"Did we get it?"

"Is it dead?"

"No, I don't think it is…"

"Is it sleeping?"

Mary nearly laughed. "You idiots know nothing about snakes, do you?"

"We know the crow of a rooster can kill it!"

"Yeah, well, maybe, if this was an actual basilisk. It's just a skin." She poked it with the toe of her boot, and it rustled. "They grow and then shed when their skin gets too small."

"So you mean…" "It's bigger than that?"

"Oh, yeah. Definitely. Aerin said if it's really been here since Slytherin, it would have to be forty or fifty feet, at least."

The boys looked distinctly nervous for the first time since they'd entered the tunnel, but followed when Mary continued onward. She had to activate the lights twice more, but after perhaps half an hour, they came to a solid wall, with two entwined snakes carved into it. Their eyes were set with great, glittering emeralds, and they looked almost alive.

"Ready?" she asked the boys. They nodded, assuming a 'ready' position with their wands. Mary did the same, and then whispered _open_.

The wall seemed to crack in two, and the halves slid out of sight. The trio walked forward, finding themselves in a very long, dimly (and faintly greenly) lit chamber. Towering stone pillars with more twining serpents supported a ceiling that was lost in darkness. There was a massive statue of Salazar Slytherin, old and monkey-faced, like the unmoving portrait of him in the common room, at the other end of the chamber.

Mary made to take a step forward, but one of the boys stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She gladly let them go first, following half a step behind as they made their way into the hall, footfalls echoing loudly.

They found Ginny lying at the statue's feet, pale, and apparently sleeping under some charm that could not be reversed by a simple Revival, but the notorious diary was nowhere to be seen. There was a hiss of Parsel from behind them. The boys spun around, ready to transfigure roosters at the slightest sign of a basilisk, but Mary sniggered. She couldn't help it.

"Who are we, who dare to trespass in the hall of the great lord Slytheirn? Who really talks like that?"

A boy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, strolled out of the shadow of the nearest pillar. To Mary, who had been expecting the wraith from last year, this was entirely unexpected. He looked rather irritated, and also somewhat transparent, like a ghost, but in color. He was tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. His features were aristocratic, though his manner seemed slightly less fluid than Mary would have expected for the Heir of Slytherin. Of course, that would make sense, if he was really a half-blood, and not raised as the Heir.

He looked down his nose at her. _Little Speaker? You must learn how to properly address your betters._ Parsel didn't normally have much intonation, but he managed to make it sound mocking.

 _You are not my better,_ she scowled at him. _And it is rude to speak a language others cannot in their presence._

 _Not 'better,' 'senior.'_ He emphasized the second word slightly differently and she caught the distinction. _I am older than you, and if you speak the snake-tongue, you are most likely my offspring. I_ am _better than you too, that just goes without saying._

If Mary hadn't been so shocked by his interpretation of her ability to speak Parsel, she might have taken offence to his last statement. "I'm not your daughter!" she said, stifling a laugh at the looks the twins gave her.

"No, I must have been fifty, at least, by the time you were born. You are more likely my granddaughter."

"Do you know who I am?" she asked tentatively.

"Of course I do. You are Mary Potter, the Girl Who Lived."

Mary scowled. "And you are presumably Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, aka, the Dark Lord Who Died."

"No, I'm not." Riddle appeared to think about this for a moment. "Okay, yes, I am Tom Riddle, and yes, I had plans to be Lord Voldemort, but _I_ never actually did that, and _he's_ not actually dead."

"Whatever. He's not actually alive, either. He's like some kind of wraith thing. The point I was going for, there, was that my parents were Lily Evans and James Potter. No Riddles."

"My working theory is that your mother was actually hidden with a muggle family for her protection. It makes sense with the political climate at the time to keep her out of harm's way, and I hear she was formidable on the battlefield – not exactly what you'd expect from a real muggleborn."

This was an interesting theory, but it couldn't possibly be true. She was certain Aunt Petunia would have mentioned if her mother was adopted, and wasn't the whole point of leaving her there in the first place that they shared _blood_? "I lived with her older sister for ten years. Definitely muggles."

The older boy waved away her argument. "Nonsense. Blood will out. I'd bet she was nothing like this muggle 'sister' of hers."

It was at that moment that the twins, who had been carrying on their own conversation in hushed tones and gestures, decided to interrupt. "Mary," one of them hissed in her ear, "Why are we just standing around?"

"Does he look like he's getting brighter to you?"

Mary squinted at the phantom boy in front of her. Now that they mentioned it, he did seem slightly more solid. "You're _stalling_ , you sneaky bastard!" she accused him, sending a stunner in his direction. It passed right through him.

He grinned. In any other circumstances, it would have been infectious. "Yes. I suppose I am a bit… transparent… at the moment."

"Sweet" "Bobby" "Robin-" "-son" The twins gaped at the Slytherin Heir. "Lord Voldemort," "Just made a pun."

"A really _bad_ pun."

"I will have you know," the boy said, in a tone faintly reminiscent of Percy, "that puns are the most advanced form of humour. They have a long and honourable history, and –"

"And you're stalling again. What are you waiting for?"

Riddle's grin this time was scary, rather than friendly. "To become solid enough that I can take the little ginger's wand and kill you all, before I finish sucking the life out of her and continue on my merry way to track down that stupid bastard I grew up to become."

Mary shivered. She wanted desperately to ask if he was going to join 'that stupid bastard' or turn against him, but every minute they sat her talking was another minute Ginny grew closer to death. "Guys, get Ginny, we're leaving."

"Oh, no, child," the phantom said, vaguely threateningly. "You can't _go_."

"Watch us! You've already said you can't do magic, and we can't hit you, clearly. So we'll go and find a way to break whatever hold you have over Ginny. We'll come back and deal with the basilisk later."

"I've got her," one of the boys said, his sister cradled in his arms.

"Let's go," the other twin said, wand still at the ready.

But Mary wasn't paying them much attention, because Riddle was speaking Parsel again.

 _Why not deal with her now? Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four._

The mouth of the statue of Slytherin was opening, and something gigantic and scaled was moving in its depths. They were about to be attacked by a basilisk, and all Mary could think was _What a stupid password._

Riddle laughed – a high, cold, piercing sound. _I supposed it is a bit conceited, isn't it?_

 _I have got to get better about speaking Parsel when I don't mean to_ , Mary thought, running with the boys to hide behind a pillar. Riddle followed them, still intangible, but ever more solid-looking.

They laid Ginny carefully at its foot, and then started blasting the walls, creating rubble to transfigure into roosters.

"Hey! You ruddy ginger bastards! What are you doing?" the Heir of Slytherin shouted at the Weasleys, who were systematically digging into the rough wall of the cavern. They ignored him.

Mary, unable to perform the spells they were using, peered around the pillar with her mirror. The massive serpent was coiling down the statue. "Hurry up, guys, it's coming!"

 _Kill anything that moves!_ Tom ordered the snake.

 _Kill…_ the great serpent hissed.

 _No! Don't kill anything!_ Mary countered.

 _Not?..._ the basilisk was momentarily confused.

 _Kill anything that moves, and ignore the little speaker,_ Tom said, smirking at Mary.

 _Kill…_

 _I said NO! Bad queen of serpents!_ Mary shouted, but the snake ignored her.

 _She would much rather follow my orders than yours,_ he added, as the great serpent turned her head toward the explosions behind the pillar. _I win._

 _Guys?_

 _Snake-language,_ Riddle said, pretending to be helpful.

"Fuck. Guys? He's told it to kill anything that moves. Close your eyes and _don't move!"_

 _Powers, you are irritating._ Riddle turned to the Basilisk again as the boys froze. _You know one scent. Kill the others!_

"Never mind! Roosters! Now!" Mary shouted in response to Tom's new orders. "And _run!"_ She levitated Ginny, pulling her along as she fled to another pillar. The boys ran in different directions, summoning rubble and transfiguring roosters behind them.

What followed was undoubtedly the most surreal, utterly insane ten minutes that Mary had ever experienced at Hogwarts. If it hadn't been so completely terrifying to watch, it would have been hilarious. In hindsight, Mary couldn't think why she had expected the twins to pull off a serious rescue anyway.

"What the? Stop! Stop that!" Riddle chased after first one twin, then the other, shouting " _evanesco_ " to vanish each rooster before it could notice any of the others and crow. Apparently it had been an overstatement to say that he couldn't use magic, but he was clearly limited in the range his wandless casting, and probably in its power, as well, since he hadn't just stunned them earlier.

The snake obviously recognized the roosters as a more immediate threat than the twins, as it was more concerned with catching them with its gaze or just plain biting them than with following Riddle's orders.

The twins ran blindly away from the snake, not daring to look back and see how close it might be, lest they meet its eyes. This meant that they had no idea that it wasn't actually following them at all, and completely failed to locate each other to coordinate their efforts. Mary tried to tell them this, but between Riddle's shouts and the twins' spells, they (apparently) couldn't hear her. They just kept alternating between demolition curses to create more rubble (which Tom eventually realized was easier to vanish all at once than individual roosters), Summoning Charms to get the rocks close enough to transfigure, and the rooster transfiguration, which unfortunately took several long seconds to complete.

Mary stood in the open, staring, stunned at the farce playing out before her, for several minutes before she realized that she should just get Ginny out. She didn't know any of the spells the twins were using, couldn't touch Riddle, and the basilisk wouldn't listen to her. She wasn't doing anyone any good where she was, and both girls had clearly been forgotten by the three boys and the snake.

Mary (and the floating Ginny) had nearly reached the massive stone doors, which had somehow closed behind the rescue party, when several things happened in quick succession: A rooster finally crowed; there was an almighty thrashing and keening (and much yelling from the twins) as the basilisk died; Tom Riddle swore loudly enough in Parsel that Mary could hear him all the way at the other end of the hall, over the twins and the dying basilisk; and the lights went out as a wave of power washed through the room like a tidal wave. Riddle and the twins fell silent. There was a thud as Ginny's unconscious body fell to the floor, and Mary's wand failed to light when she tried _lumos_.

"Fred, George? Are you alright?" she called into the sudden quiet.

"Mary?" "Ginny?" came identical voices from opposite sides of the Chamber.

"Ginny's still unconscious. What just happened? Why won't my wand work?"

Riddle's voice came out of the darkness, nearer to Mary than either of the twins. "You _idiots_ just killed a millennium-old basilisk, _using magic_ , which caused the magic of the basilisk to be released into the chamber, and completely swamped every spell in progress." He was now very close to Mary.

"Boo," he said, creating an orb of light in the palm of his hand. Mary flinched in the sudden light, and Riddle laughed again before turning his attention to Ginny. "Damn it," he said, leaning over the younger girl. He summoned a plain-looking, black, leather-bound book from somewhere in the darkness, casting some sort of revealing spell on it before flipping through it carelessly and muttering under his breath. The Diary?

"How can you use magic, when I can't?" Mary asked, feeling a bit stupid.

"I told you: I'm better than you." But there was no sting in his words.

"Jackass," Mary glared at the young Dark Lord. He really was far less intimidating than the wraith. He kept teasing and being _charming_ , and he seemed to share Hermione's compulsion to answer any question asked in his vicinity.

"Impertinent granddaughter."

"I told you, my mum's parents were muggles."

"And I told you, memory charms are easy. They might have _thought_ she was their daughter, but without a Lineae Familiae test, there's no way to know for sure."

"No you didn't," said one of the twins, materializing out of the darkness.

"We'd have remembered that," said the other.

"And speaking of remembering…"

"We do believe we were on our way _out_."

"Right," Mary said, "Let's go."

Tom smirked at them. "You're going to get back up to the school with no light and no magic?"

"It's one long tunnel. It's not like we can get lost."

"Well, then, we may be at an impasse, as I'm afraid I still can't let you leave. I am still without a body, you see, and that, my stubborn children, is a sad state of affairs which I cannot allow to persist."

"What do you want us to do about it?"

"We're not going to let you kill our sister!"

"You say this as though you have a choice in the matter."

"That's it. Mary?"

"Yes?"

"Get the door."

Mary turned to the great ceremonial entryway and began to command them to open, but her voice cut out halfway through the password.

"What part of 'I have magic and you don't,' don't you understand? You're staying here until I tell you that you may leave!" The worst part was that the boy didn't even sound angry.

There was a long moment of tense silence before one of the twins spoke.

"So all we have to do," "Is make you want us," "To go away?" "George?" "Yes, Fred?" "I do believe we have been challenged." "I do believe you're right, Brother."

Mary smacked a palm to her face. The twins specialized in irritating Slytherins, it was true, but surely even they could not simply _bother_ the Dark Lord enough that he would let them all go, just to get rid of them. He'd probably kill them first.

It did seem their plan was having _some_ effect, though.

"Dark powers, will you _stop_ that?" Riddle complained.

"Stop," "What?"

"That!"

"Sorry," "Can't," "Think" "What" "You" "Might" "Be" "Referring" "To." "No, Fred, it ought to have been 'to what'." "Sorry, George." "Can't," "Think" "To" "What" "You" "Might" "Be" "Referring."

Riddle made a show of massaging his temples. Even Mary was finding it a bit irritating by this point. Surprisingly, the older boy's next move was not simply to silence or stun the twins, but to offer a deal. "I'll tell you how I'm doing magic if you knock it off."

"Done," the boys said together.

Riddle glared at them for a moment, but when they showed no signs of resuming their twin-speak thing, he upheld his end. "This," he said, nodding at the light on his palm, "is wandless."

"Obviously," Mary said, somewhat surprised that she was allowed to speak. She tried to poke Riddle in the side, wondering how far his tolerance extended. "You're still not solid."

Apparently further than she suspected, as long as she wasn't trying to open the doors. He twitched away. "No, I'm not. That doesn't mean you can go sticking your grubby fingers in my _space_."

"So the magic?" only one of the twins asked. The other remained silent. Mary considered this a minor miracle, even as she wondered what the phantom boy was up to. He had to have some sort of plan.

"Wandless magic, at least the way I do it, is totally different from wanded magic. You use your wand to direct your magic, and from there affect the magic of the world around you. I just reach out and touch the magic of the world. There's a lot of free magic around right now, so it's easier to just reach out. Using a wand would be like… trying to make a whirlpool in the Black Lake with your potions-rod. It's great when there's not much magic to manipulate, but when there's too much, it won't make a difference at all."

All three of the teens were staring at the intangible young Dark Lord.

"That made a surprising amount of sense," the same twin said.

"Was that what Flitwick was trying to tell us in that theory lecture that no one understood?"

"I think so. So wands focus and direct your magic, which most of the time you need to do, but now that's not going to work."

Riddle sighed. "Yes. Basically. Let's go."

"Go where?" one of the Weasleys asked.

"To figure out what we need to do so you irritating little brats can leave." Had something gone wrong with whatever spell was on Ginny? Mary wondered.

"What if we don't want to go with you?" the other Weasley asked. It appeared Riddle hadn't entirely managed to break their habit.

"Then I _imagine_ you'll all die of thirst eventually and I'll have to find some _other_ way to get a body. But things will be much easier for all of us if you just cooperate. Don't you trust me?" Riddle asked with the same pleasant smile. It would have been easy to ignore that he had just threatened to let them die before he let them go.

"Well," Mary pointed out, "You're not exactly Mr. Nice Guy, are you? I mean, you did say you were going to kill us and suck all the life out of Ginny."

"I can't believe you would say such a thing! Surely a fellow Slytherin can appreciate the urge to survive at any cost? Ginny was simply a means to an end."

Mary shot a look at the twins, who were eyeing her speculatively. It probably wasn't a good idea to answer that. "There wasn't any other alternative?"

Riddle's expression turned thoughtful. "Well, that is the question, isn't it? I wouldn't have killed the basilisk, but since it's already dead…" He started walking away.

"Hey, Riddle!" Mary called, "If all spells are stopped, what about Ginny?"

The boy looked around. He appeared surprised that she wasn't following him. He shrugged. "She'll wake up in a few hours. Aren't you coming?"

Mary had no idea where he was going, but she certainly didn't want to be left in the dark to die of thirst. The twins apparently agreed, because one of them scooped up Ginny, and they began to follow the apparition as it strode away.


	18. Saturn Rising

**[A/N: This is another long, 2-part chapter. Unfortunately, there was no really good place to split it, so it may seem a bit cliff-hanger-y at the end. Sorry.]**

* * *

 **Chapter 14: Easter Special, Three Days Late**

[In which there is a gratuitous amount of blood, possession, and ritual magic, and a horcrux escapes.]

Monday, 12 April – Tuesday, 13 April 1993 Chamber of Secrets

Mary and the twins followed the strange young Dark Lord around the base of the statue to a small, dark, wooden door, carved with snakes like the enormous one at the entrance. _Open for a child of Slytherin,_ he said, and it swung inward with a small _click_.

"See, now, that's a _much_ more reasonable password."

"Well, this is the original chamber," Riddle explained, as they walked into a comfortable, if dusty, sitting area. "The Parthenon out there was added a few centuries later by one of the Heirs. I just never bothered to change the password on the statue. In my defense, no one else did either."

"So there have been other Heirs?"

"Of course," Riddle shot his 'granddaughter' a 'stop being stupid' look. "It's been ten centuries, and he _was_ a founder. Most of his descendants came here, at least pre-statute. Then most of them left the country, as far as I could tell." Mary just nodded. "Open that door," he added, pointing at a tapestry.

"Why can't you?"

"I'm not corporeal enough. Just open it."

Mary considered for a moment before deciding it was probably in their best interests to cooperate. She pulled the tapestry out of the way gingerly – the thing was probably priceless – and laid a hand on the wooden door behind it. There was a faint spark as a ward washed over her, recognizing her. It drew a drop of blood, but she didn't complain, since it did open, regardless of the fact that she was almost positive her mother was not Voldemort's daughter.

The Dark Lord in question swept past her, and froze. Mary walked through him before she could stop. It was a very static-y feeling, quite unlike the few times she'd had the misfortune to brush against a ghost.

"Sorry," she said, catching her balance, but he didn't seem to care. There was a look of abject horror on his face.

"What's up?" one of the Weasleys called from the sitting room.

"I'm going to kill him," Riddle mumbled, moving further into the new room. "I'm going to _fucking_ kill him." Mary sincerely hoped he wasn't referring to the Weasley twin who had just spoken. "The basilisk could have been a mistake, but _this_?"

The ball of light doubled and split several times, the spheres flying to different corners of what she could now see was a library – a heavily-looted and largely destroyed library.

"Riddle?" Mary asked hesitantly, but the boy shook his head at her.

"Go. Just go. Wait outside while I see if there's anything in here that can be salvaged." He sounded… broken, as though his older self had betrayed him far more deeply by sacking their library than by becoming a (failed) Dark Lord.

Mary went.

She sat with the Weasley twins on the floor, whispering about the Heir of Slytherin in the weak light from beyond the tapestry. He was nothing like any of them had expected, and even the twins weren't sure what to make of him. None of them trusted him as far as they could throw him, despite his charming façade. The twins especially weren't willing to overlook what he'd been doing to Ginny all year, and Mary was wary of how quickly he seemed to change tactics when one personality wasn't working to get him what he wanted. None of them had any ideas about how to get out of the Chamber, especially without magic, or how to get rid of him. After at least an hour of Mary saying 'I told you so,' the boys finally admitted they should have gotten Professor Snape to help.

They sat quietly for a while, until one of the boys suggested that they simply ought to sneak away while Riddle was distracted. Unfortunately he apparently wasn't as distracted as all that, because his voice floated out of the library, then: "I can hear you, and that won't be happening."

The twin in question flushed, furious with himself for being overheard and ruining that chance, though Mary thought Riddle probably would have heard them opening the door of the little chamber, as well, and stopped them anyway. She sighed loudly, and began to convince the twins to just do whatever it was Riddle wanted, so they could all go home. It wasn't as though they really had any other choice, and it was their fault they were in this mess to begin with. After calling her a Slytherin for her pragmatism (which they really ought to know by now was no kind of insult, no matter what tone they used) and coming up with at least four other escape plans (none of which would have worked, even if the bastard hadn't been listening in), they eventually agreed.

Shortly after that, Ginny woke up. She was convinced at first that she was in one of her Tom-related nightmares, and didn't take it well when the twins explained that, actually, he was in the next room, and out of the book. From what Mary could make out, she remembered being questioned, and Tom taking over her body, but nothing after they reached Myrtle's bathroom. She reached the point of hysterics well before the boys could tell her what they were doing or where they were and why.

Mary left her older brothers to comfort her and went to see what Riddle was doing.

As it turned out, the answer was mostly reading, and a lot of levitation. He had re-ordered the library (or at least what was left of it) and had several heavy-looking books and an ancient-looking scroll hovering in front of him.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked quietly, just inside the door.

"Maybe. What do you know about Dark Arts?"

"I'm a muggle-raised second-year."

"So, nothing?"

"Well, I've felt the Dark Powers on the major Sabbats, but as far as actual dark magic goes, yeah. Nothing."

Tom snorted. "You're doing a little better than I was at your age, then. Here," he conjured a quill and a fresh scroll of parchment in front of her, pointing to the table. "Take notes."

Mary sat and did as she was told.

"This," the boy said, waving a book over to her, "is the ritual I used to make the diary. It's called a horcrux. It's created using a soul magic ritual invoking the Destructive and Binding Powers. I know from things he wrote later that he changed it, after the first time, but _this_ is exactly what's between me and him. Copy out the diagrams and major points for the steps in the breaking, binding and reanimation sections, and everything in the next chapter about breaking it."

And with that, the boy went back to his reading. Mary skimmed through the major steps, fingertips barely touching the heavy pages. She wasn't sure she wanted to know anything about soul magic, which she recalled Lilian and Snape talking about the year before, or anything invoking the Destructive Power, which was, she thought, Black Arts by default.

"This says you needed a human sacrifice, made in cold blood," she said, trying not to sound too accusatory.

"Yes. It also says it has to be performed at the dark of the moon, and if you bollox up the circle, the Power might very well take your soul instead of breaking it neatly in half." Mary shivered, and Tom grinned at her discomfort. "I'd say it's perfectly safe if you're careful, but it's not. Dark Arts is a dangerous subject. Let me know when you're done."

Mary wasn't done, with her notes or her question. "Who'd you murder?"

"Myrtle Phelps. Ravenclaw, a couple years below me. Why?"

"That's horrible."

"You only say that because you never met her," the boy answered absently. "The world's better off without her. Wretched, whiney thing."

"I have. She's a ghost, now. She haunts the loo at the top of the passageway."

" _Really?_ I had no idea. I just banished her every time."

"Really."

"Strange. Well, then, I expect you understand, anyway. Death doesn't change their personalities, you know. Whatever she's like now, she was always like that."

"But you… you just killed her?"

"No, that's what's strange. I got the basilisk to petrify her, and brought her down here to cast the circle. Killing Curse to the heart, finished the ritual, and returned her body back to the bathroom. I imagine she doesn't even remember anything after being petrified. None of the others did. No idea how she managed to become a ghost, since they normally have to be conscious at the moment of death… I'll look into it later." He waved a hand to turn the page.

"Didn't it _bother_ you, just… cold-blooded _murdering_ her?"

"No. Why would it?" Tom turned to look at her for the first time since she'd asked who he killed, a vaguely curious expression on his face.

Mary gaped at him. He wasn't even _defensive_ about it. "It just… it just should. I don't know why. Because it's another human life! Killing is wrong. Evil." She shoved the book away across the table.

The Heir of Slytherin rolled his eyes. "There's no such thing as good and evil. Only power, and those too weak to seek it."

"So we should all go around killing people we don't like, then?"

"I imagine it's a far sight better than killing people you _do_ like." The boy's cheeky grin reminded Mary of Lilian, and made him look much younger.

"To- _om_ …" Mary drew out his name in exasperation, not noticing as she slipped to the more familiar address.

He smirked at her. "Ma- _ry_. I'll make this as clear as I possibly can for you: I am not a nice person. I was not a nice person when I was _actually_ sixteen, and I'm not a nice person now, after being trapped in a bleeding diary for fifty years. For the most part, I do not like people or really understand them, or consider myself one of them. I will not hesitate to kill if it furthers my own goals." Mary was leaning away from him, now. His smirk broadened into an easy smile. "That said, I'm not insane, and I don't like the person I grew up to become – I mean, aside from everything else, he's clearly an idiot. Have you _met_ the average wizard? It shouldn't take six months to take over Britain, let alone ten _years_. But I digress. I make rational choices, and I'm fully capable of playing the part society expects of me, no matter how tedious I may find it. I'm not going to run off and start killing people for fun."

"What was the point of attacking students all year, then?"

"To get Dumbledore fired."

"All that, just to get the Headmaster fired?" Mary raised a skeptical eyebrow at the phantom.

"We have a history, and he might have been able to stop me getting a body if he were still here." Mary was still giving him an incredulous look. "Oh, come off it, it's not like I sent the basilisk into the Great Hall! No one died. I didn't even sabotage the damn mandrakes. They'll be able to restore the ones who were petrified by the end of the year, just like they did back in the forties."

"So it's not about attacking muggleborns?"

Riddle shook his head. "It never was. My own wellbeing is my highest priority. Everything else is optional. Accepting the whole blood purity dogma was supposed to be just a political move to get Malfoy and Black and that jackass Lestrange off my back. I don't know why the Idiot never moved on after school. It's obviously a flawed paradigm."

"It's still not right, what you've been doing."

"I'm not going to argue ethics with a twelve-year-old."

"That's the sort of thing people say when they know they're going to lose."

"No, O impertinent one, that's the sort of thing people say when they want to get a body and get out of here, which is not going to happen unless I can get through this chapter." He gave her a pointed look. "If you're not going to be helpful, you can go back out and sit with the gingers."

"Why do you even need notes on that ritual anyway?" Mary grumbled.

"Because, as soon as I have a body, I'm planning on breaking the ties between my life-spark, which is currently somewhere out in the world being an enormous idiot, and the part of my soul that this consciousness is tied to, which means that unless I want to actually _die_ , I need to tie myself to another life-spark at the same time. The Idiot took all the literature on vampires with him, so the next-best option is to adapt the horcrux ritual, and to do that, we start with a copy that's stripped down to bare bones. You can either copy it, thereby saving me the trouble of doing it all in my head, or you can get out and stop distracting me."

The book slid back in front of Mary, and Tom turned back to his own reading again.

"Fine, but just so you know, no one down here is going to want to have you tied to their life, and none of us is going to be your human sacrifice."

"Like you could stop me? I'm the only one who can do magic at the moment, if you recall? But the purpose of the sacrifice is as a gift of power to the Powers you're invoking. Any source of metaphysical energy or potential would do. We're practically drowning in magic at the moment – we won't need another sacrifice."

"You'd better not," Mary said, finally returning to work.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

A surprisingly comfortable silence settled in, broken only by the scratching of Mary's quill and the turning of pages. Even the Weasleys were quiet outside. After a short time, she announced that she was done. Tom came over and looked at her work, comparing it to the process and diagrams outlined in the book. He ordered her to cross out several lines entirely, and had her circle several sections of the diagrams, which he said would need to be re-defined to bind soul to body to life-spark, rather than to an inanimate vessel like the diary.

"All right, then," Tom announced. "This is what I'm thinking. We'll make a blood-golem for the body. It's based on a relatively straightforward piece of bio-alchemy, but since we haven't got half the materials here, we'll need to ritualize it and call on the Constructive Power to manage it. They usually only last seven years, but since we're housing my soul and a good bit of my magic in it, and I'm planning on integrating part of all of this lovely stuff floating around as well, it should be able to be sustained indefinitely. It probably won't really age beyond the seven years, though I don't know that anyone's ever really considered eternal youth a _problem, per se_.

"Then, we'll draw two circles, one inside the other. The inner circle is the breaking part of the horcrux ritual, so the Destructive Power, but aimed at my current life-spark/soul bond. This will effectively negate the use of the diary or my new body as a horcrux for the original life-spark, but fuck that idiot. He's had ten years to come back if he wanted to use it. I'm getting a do-over. When it's served its purpose, that circle will burn out and dissipate.

"The outer circle will contain the blood-golem and my untethered magic, soul, and associated consciousness. Basically I'll be a demonic entity until the second circle activates and binds the golem, life-spark, and metaphysical pieces. That will involve the Binding, Cooperative, and Constructive Powers. We'll call on the Chaotic Power in the aspect of the Lady to govern the whole process, since it involves both light and dark powers, and it's basically ad-hoc. Sounds reasonable?"

Mary had, in all honesty, only followed about half of that. Possibly less. "I guess so. Aren't there supposed to be more… I don't know… rules? To rituals, and invoking the Powers? I didn't think you could just cut and paste them together like this."

Tom smirked. "Rule number one: if you've got enough power, you can hang the rules. Most of magic is just intention and will. The rules are tradition, and strong in their way, but not inviolable. The Powers can be touchy, yes, but that's why we're invoking the Lady to govern the others. The Chaotic Power likes to break the others' rules, and if the Lady smiles on us, it will go off without a hitch. If not, of course, we'll be on our own, but I've never failed before."

"Halloween, 1981?"

"He's not dead, is he? And anyway, that's not me."

Mary let that one go. "Whose life-spark are you going to use?"

"Well, I could use one of the twins' – from what I've seen and Ginny's told me, they sound like they're entwined enough that they could get by with one between the two of them – but that would be another breaking and binding circle. I actually thought we'd use the basilisk's. She was a sapient creature once upon a time, so it will be compatible. I have no idea how the Idiot managed to break her mind so thoroughly. She wasn't even _sentient_ by the time I got here. But her life-spark should linger for a few days before it dissipates, and since she's dead, it's currently not bound to anything."

"How do you do that, then?" Mary asked, ignoring the seeming impossibility of making him part-basilisk.

"It'll be a Necro element, so the sacrifice section here," he pointed at a section of the original diagram, "Will need to be everted. We'll need to include her blood in the golem, as well as some of the runes in the circles, those sections I marked out in the binding part of the horcrux ritual. Between that and the fact that it's going to be powered by and integrate a lot of the ambient magic that was, until very recently, tied to that life-spark, should be enough to draw it in. The golem has a pseudo-spark, which will be replaced, giving it a "seat" in the construct, and the spells to maintain that pseudo-spark should keep the basilisk's life-spark from dissipating, even if it doesn't want to integrate properly. But there's no reason it shouldn't."

"Okay… And the golem?"

"It's kind of like a spell to make a twin, or a really good physical simulacrum."

"Like a clone?"

Tom shrugged. "You use blood as the basis for a magical construct, kind of like a semi-permanent human transfiguration, but without all the maths. How close it is to a real human body depends less on how well you know your human anatomy and more on the blood used. Drawbacks are that while it mimics life, it's not truly alive; it doesn't have a soul or consciousness of its own, so it must be consciously controlled by the doll-maker; and the ritual expires after seven years, allowing the magic holding it together to dissipate. We're fixing the first problem by pulling in the basilisk's spark, the second by tying in my consciousness and soul, and the third by integrating my magic, along with a good part of the basilisk's magic that's just free-floating at the moment. Practical problems include that I don't actually have blood at the moment. We'll use yours."

"Why mine? Won't that make the golem _my_ clone?"

"Because you're most likely my granddaughter, and if not, then somehow my magical heir, since the library did let you in. You have to be a valid, living, _willing_ heir of Slytherin to open the door. No one can force you to give up the family's secrets. And yes, but we're going to alter it by, well, basically mixing your blood with a little bit of basilisk blood, and exposing it to my magical signature, which sounds a bit hazy, I know, but basically means that I'll be imbuing it with my magical presence so that I can actively control the formation process. So it actually will depend quite a lot on my knowledge of human anatomy, like a complex permanent transfiguration, but since that's basically what I was going to use Ginny to power anyway, I'm not terribly worried." He waved away this concern. "The other practical problem is actually drawing the circles. If you don't mind, it will be far easier if I possess you to draw out the altered diagrams, and then the twins will have to actually lay out and empower them for the ritual. Neither you nor Ginny will have the reserves to power that many runes, and I can't very well draw anything in this state. My levitation spells are good, but not _that_ good, at least without a wand."

"Erm…"

"Oh, honestly, it's not like I wouldn't give your body _back_. I don't want to be a twelve-year-old girl! If I did, I could have kept Ginny!"

Mary giggled despite herself. The idea of Tom trapped as a girl her age _forever_ was somehow inherently funny. "It's not that." It was, actually, a little that. She didn't want to end up possessed like Ginny or Quirrell if the body ritual didn't work out. "It's just… I don't know if you _can_ possess me. Your older self tried last year, and it… didn't go well."

"How so?"

"Well, I heard him inside my head saying 'what the hell are you?' in Parsel, and then we were both in incredible pain, and he had to retreat."

Tom's eyes widened. "That. Is. _Fascinating_. And possibly incredibly problematic. Now I _really_ need to try this."

"Ah… Okay," Mary agreed hesitantly, and Tom's eyes locked onto hers.

"Try to relax, if you can. This is going to feel really weird," he said, and then she felt a foreign presence inside her mind, as though her skull was suddenly far too full.

 _Can you hear me?_

"Yes," Mary said aloud.

 _So far so good, then. There is something here. It's almost like… a fragment of my life-spark, maybe?_

"What does that mean?"

 _Well, there's definitely a draw, indicating some kind of connection between us, and it suggests you're my magical heir through a soul-magic accident, and not actually my granddaughter. Pity. I liked that theory. This thing probably resonated badly with his spark when he tried to come into your head. Dark Powers, he_ really _fucked up. The life-spark is supposed to be indivisible. Anyway, it shouldn't be a problem. Watch._

"See? Now I have control of your body," Tom said. It was almost exactly like being on Veritaserum, feeling her mouth move of its own accord, but stranger, because she had no idea what Tom was going to say before he said it.

He picked up her abandoned quill and conjured a new scroll, quickly outlining three different ritual circles. That was even stranger. She didn't care much for it at all.

 _Neither did Ginny._ Tom thought at her.

… _You can hear what I'm thinking?_

 _Only the really coherent thoughts. I'm not actually concentrating much on reading you right now. It would be easy enough to turn inward and legilimize you, but we have things to do._ He summoned a book off a shelf with a wave of his hand. _This is Akkadian. I've only ever seen it used in Soul Magic, but it tends to crop up there a lot. It's worth learning if you're going to specialize and become a Soul Mage, but otherwise, that's what reference books are for._

 _And the others?_ It seemed Tom liked to teach.

 _I considered being a teacher when I graduated,_ the boy said. _Hieratic, which is fairly common, and Proto-Arabic, which isn't uncommon, but not common either, and especially not in most European-origin rituals_ he thought, pointing to each of the other two languages. _There are a few Greek symbols as well, but mostly for their arithmantic implications. Alphabets aren't conceptual enough to make good runes. You need at_ least _a syllabary to anchor your meanings, or you might as well write out what you want longhand. Now hush._

Mary sat quietly in the back of her own mind, thinking how very odd the whole situation was as she watched her hand trace out symbols and arrange them in some arcane pattern according to knowledge she wasn't privy to. It looked to her like he was changing a lot more than the little sections he had marked out originally. She hoped he knew what he was doing.

 _Aww, you care about me?_ Tom thought sarcastically inside her own head.

 _Well, I like you more than I think I should, but I mostly just don't want you to blow us all up._

Tom laughed. _A valid concern. I've changed the actual symbols of those sections to re-define the targets, but they all have to be re-arranged to accommodate the new information. And for the binding, it needs to encompass three elements instead of two, so instead of an ellipse-based shape, we need a trefoil, with the one leaf everted, or turned-inside-out, for the necromantic bits – we want to draw in the basilisk's life-spark, not contain a sacrifice… The proper sacrifice part is up_ here _– I take all the power I'm keeping, and the rest is split between the Powers we're invoking at the beginning, before anything else. And that leads to all these other changes._

He was silent for a few more minutes before he added, _Oh, forgot about that bit. Marking the vessel. I'll need to possess you again after the golem is made to mark it with the appropriate runes._

Finally he was done, and turned control back over to Mary, who suddenly felt much more tired than she had while Tom was in control.

She blinked heavily at him, and he smirked at her in return. "Go have a kip. I'll get the twins to mark out the circles while you do."

Tom followed Mary back into the sitting room, the latest scroll and one of his little lanterns accompanying them. The light woke the Weasleys, and the sight of Tom sent Ginny into hysterics again.

Mary was left to deal with her as Tom dragged her brothers out into the giant hall, filling them in on exactly what he needed them to do. She was too tired to be nice, and ended up resorting to the method she and Lilian had perfected for Hermione during their first exam season: smacking her sharply across the face.

Normally, in Mary's experience, this had a sobering effect on the person so treated. In Ginny's case, it did not. Mary received in return a hard punch to the ribs, and one to the jaw before the younger girl calmed down.

"Why'd you hit me?"

"You smacked me first!"

"Merlin and Morgan! Only to make you stop freaking out about Riddle!"

"He's fucking insane! He was going to kill me!"

"Yeah, well, now he's not. I don't know what the twins have told you, but we're trapped somewhere under the school and there's so much magic in the air that our wands aren't working. No one knows where we are, and the only way we're likely to get out before we starve to death is if we help him get what he wants."

"You don't understand! He's awful! He's been torturing me all year!"

Mary gave the other girl a long look before she said, very quietly, "That doesn't matter. He's the only one down here who can do magic, so we have to do what he wants until we get out."

Ginny curled up in an old armchair, facing away from Mary. "You're just like him," she accused, and then refused to say anything else to the Slytherin.

Mary, exhausted, decided that ignoring this comment was probably the best course of action, but she worried as she drifted off that the younger girl might be right, and even more disturbingly, that she didn't know if she minded. After all, if it was her own survival and freedom on the line, there was a very good chance she would choose herself over a virtual stranger as well. But she did like to think that killing anyone, even someone as irritating as Moaning Myrtle, and especially an innocent like Ginny, would bother her.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Several hours later, or at least Mary suspected it was several hours later, given that she couldn't even do a _tempus_ charm, and had never owned a watch, she woke to an argument about facilities.

"Well excuse me, Mr. Diary Ghost, but _some_ of us have bodily needs!" Ginny shrieked from somewhere in the giant hall. Her voice was shrill, even with a door between them. Clearly she had gotten past her hysterics at the sight of Tom and was now determined to make his life as miserable as she could.

Now that she mentioned bodily needs, though, Mary was very thirsty. She looked around curiously, wondering if Tom had somehow brought in water. A half-eaten loaf of bread, several apples, and, yes, a pitcher of water with a few glasses left in it, sat on the sidetable – the Weasleys must have already eaten.

Mary took advantage of their absence to drink straight from the pitcher, then quickly scarfed down a chunk of bread, and took an apple with her to go see what the others had accomplished while she slept.

"It's almost ready," Tom said, as soon as she came around the statue.

The smooth flagstone floor, which filled the space between the columns, had been covered in broad lines of black and white paint, with hand-sized runes in the opposite color painted at intervals of about a foot within each line – chains and chains of them. The diagrams Tom had used Mary's hands to draw had been recreated on a much larger scale. The basic patterns were simple enough – a circle sat enclosed in one 'leaf' of a trefoil pattern, in which Tom would be separated from Voldemort. The second leaf was flipped inside out, so that from above, it would have looked somewhat like a heart attached to a circle or teardrop. The small circle was large enough for Tom to lie down in. There was a second circle, slightly larger than that, separated from the others by perhaps ten meters, in which the golem would be created. Then, even further down the hall, another circle had been sketched out and apparently abandoned. All of the small circles, even the one that looked abandoned, were complex knots of interwoven lines. The trefoil was simply a doubled black-and-white line, which helped show the direction of the leaves, though Mary was certain that was not its official purpose and the reason for its apparent simplicity.

One of the twins was empowering some of the runes, leaving them glowing different colors. Tom was supervising closely. When she approached, she heard him murmuring the names and functions of each symbol. She was curious why they were skipping some of them, but was reluctant to interrupt. The other Weasley twin came up behind Mary.

"Kind of amazing, isn't it? I don't think he's referenced any of them yet," he said quietly.

"He looked up a bunch of Akkadian earlier," Mary volunteered.

"Just had to ruin my fun, didn't you?" Tom asked, looking up from the diagram. "I had them just about convinced that I was omniscient."

"So sorry. He didn't bother looking up any of the diagrams or the hieratic or the Arabic," she directed at the twins. "Better?" she asked the phantom.

"It wasn't that I didn't _bother_. I didn't _need_ to."

"She's a second-year," the Weasley who was activating runes pointed out. "She hasn't taken Runes. She has no idea how impressive any of this is. What's next?"

"Good point, Fred," his brother said, while Tom looked back at the diagram.

"Skip the next two, and then the next one is another _ki,_ and then _ush_." George made a note on a scrap of paper Mary hadn't noticed.

"Referencing the previous two and linking to the next, which binds them together," Fred said with a nod. Tom nodded back, and Fred closed his eyes, hand hovering over the rune, which began to glow purple.

"Why did you skip two?"

"One needs the basilisk's blood added to it, and the other needs your blood."

Ginny returned from the darkness just then, poor mood obviously not improved by having to make due with a latrine indoors. "Blood? We can't do a blood ritual!" she objected.

"You can and you will, unless you really want to die down here," Tom replied mildly. "And your brothers and Miss Potter along with you, since none of you are leaving until I've got what I want."

"Erm…" Mary began to speak, but hesitated. Perhaps she shouldn't rib Ginny.

"What were you going to say?" George asked.

Mary's flush was evident in the pale light of Tom's lamps. "Just, well, Miss Weasley, what did you think was going on here?"

"She has a point," Tom smirked. "I don't _do_ White Arts."

Ginny cringed before the Slytherins, then turned and stomped away. Mary immediately felt bad. She knew she shouldn't have said anything.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

"What do I need to do?" Mary asked as she watched Ginny disappear behind a pillar, hoping to change the subject.

"First you need to find your symbol," Tom said. "I'm assuming you don't know it, since you haven't gotten to divination yet, and it's OWL level in Runes. Then we're going to find out how good you are at channeling magic."

"Um, okay. Why?"

"Because I need to draw and activate all the runes in that circle," he pointed down the hall, "to draw some of the ambient power into my being. If you remember the reanimation section of the horcrux ritual, you'll recall I don't have anything like the magic I _should_. So we're going to fix that. Your symbol is needed for the binding ritual, to differentiate between your blood in your body and your blood in the golem. You'll have to empower that, too, so mind you pay attention when I'm doing it."

"So how do I find my symbol?"

Tom sighed. "You need to reach a meditative state and turn inward. When you think you've found your center, breathe onto a mirror so that it catches some condensation. It should clear into your symbol. It's probably going to take ages, unless you've actually learned to meditate already." He didn't even sound hopeful.

"What exactly _is_ meditating?"

"Come sit," he said, walking back toward the chamber proper. "This is going to take a while. Weasleys," he called to the Twins as he walked away, "That phrase is repeated six more times in that diagram. You can activate them as well."

"Aye-aye," George called, throwing a mocking salute at the older boy's back.

"Kids today," Riddle grumbled, throwing himself into an approximation of lounging in an armchair. It didn't really look right, given that he wasn't really solid and had no weight. "Right. The easiest way to describe meditation is the practice of quieting your conscious mind in order to access the unconscious or to become more receptive to the universe. The easiest way to do it, at least the first time, is to concentrate on one aspect of your body, usually the heartbeat or breathing, to the exclusion of all else. Narrow your focus to just that one thing, and lose yourself in the regularity of it. The next step is to center yourself – become aware that that one thing is just part of a larger body, and allow your awareness to expand to every nerve and cell in your body. From there, you need to focus on the flow of magic throughout your body, and follow it back to your core, the place from which it seems to flow.

"If magic were blood, your core would be like your heart. You'll know when you're there because you'll recognize the feeling of magic. It's about a hundred times stronger in your core than anywhere else, and you will probably get thrown out of your trance when you find it, because it will startle you. Find it again, maintain contact with it, and then breathe on the mirror, all without losing that same sense of awareness of your magic. Your breath should condense into a single symbol, which you use to represent yourself in any runework or rituals you do. Got it?"

Most of it sounded like zoning out, a practice she had perfected over the course of many long years of being trapped in a cupboard for hours on end. She did have one question, though. "What does magic feel like?"

Tom rolled his eyes. "This should be one of the first things they teach you, but of course it's not. Why _would_ young witches and wizards need to know what it feels like to _use_ their magic? Like this." He hovered one of his hands over one of Mary's and she suddenly felt it engulfed in the same static-y sensation she had felt on walking through him. "Most people keep their magic very close to their bodies. If they're angry or upset, it may broaden and lash out, but for the most part, it hovers right around the skin. That's what the 'aura' is – your magic made visible. Remember when I said earlier that you can reach out and touch the magic of the world, even without a wand?" Mary nodded. "That's basically extending your magic outside the confines of your body, but with a purpose. You can sense foreign magic by touching it with your own magic, which is what we're doing now. To me it feels like dipping my fingers into cool water. To you it will almost certainly feel different."

"Like static. Electricity."

Tom nodded. "When you're meditating, you separate your mind from your magic, to a degree, but you're still using your magic to sense yourself as though you were an outsider, so your magic should feel similar to mine. There are nuances to it that can help you distinguish between different peoples' magic, but that's far more advanced than you need to know for the moment."

"What do you mean I'm still using my magic to sense my magic? Isn't that like trying to see your own eyeball?"

"No, it's more like poking yourself in the arm. You don't normally just feel the texture of your own skin, do you?"

"Ah, no?"

"So you're not focusing on what the touch feels like for your fingers, normally, if you're touching your own arm. But you do when you're touching someone else's arm, because you're only getting information from your fingers, not their arm. To feel the texture of your own magic, that static-y feeling, you have to concentrate on the finger, more than on the arm. Metaphorically."

Mary, who had been poking herself in the arm literally, nodded. "So I have to zone out, and then find my magic within my body, and trace it back to the place where it seems like it's coming from?"

Tom hesitated, obviously trying to figure out if "zone out" was the same thing as meditation, but eventually said, "Yes." He summoned a mirror from somewhere in the room. It was heavy and silver-backed, and nearly completely tarnished, but still reflective.

"Okay. I should probably, erm… relieve myself, first," she said, unable to think of a more graceful way to excuse herself to go squat in a corner.

Much to her surprise, Tom began to snigger. "The WC is behind that door," he said, pointing at another tapestry.

"I thought you made Ginny go in the cave!"

"Ginny was being a brat," he said simply.

Mary decided that there was little to be gained in pointing out that that had been very mean of him, especially considering that Ginny had every right to be irritable about the fact that he had nearly killed her. She helped herself to the antiquated but entirely adequate vanishing toilet, and when she returned, Tom had gone back to directing the twins.

Mary settled herself in an armchair and began to let her mind drift.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

An indeterminate amount of time later, Tom came back. "How is it going?" he asked.

Surprise was briefly visible on his face when she explained that she had managed to find her core, she was almost positive, but hadn't managed to keep in contact with it while finding the mirror and breathing on it. She thought it was because the instant she had any intention to do anything, the trance state shattered.

"Better than I expected," he admitted.

Mary just shrugged.

"The twins have done all they can for the moment, so it's time for us to do the power-tapping ritual."

"Okay," Mary nodded. Meditating was surprisingly tiring. "What time is it?" she asked as her stomach growled.

Tom snapped his fingers and the glowing red numbers of a tempus charm flared. "Almost nine."

"Almost _nine_? As in Tuesday morning?"

"No, as in Tuesday evening."

"Crap. They're going to know we're gone."

"I suspect it is safe to say your absence will not have gone unnoted. Still, we should be done with all this by tomorrow, and you can go back, safe and sound, just in time for classes to resume."

Mary groaned. "Alright, I'm ready. What do I need to do?"

Tom grinned and caught her eye. "Just relax."

And then Mary's limbs, which were no longer her own, carried her out of the sitting room to the furthest circle. Unlike the other circles, this one had no runes drawn in, and their lines were much thinner, just charcoal lines sketched onto the grey stone – no paint.

 _The paint was just water and eggwhites with the chalk and charcoal,_ Tom thought at her.

 _Where did you get eggs?_

 _The same place I got bread and apples – stolen from the kitchens._

 _How…?_

Aparicium. _It's kind of like apparating an object to you. NEWT level Charms, and it only works if you know where the thing is that you want to move. Thankfully the kitchens haven't been reorganized in the past fifty years. Inanimate objects only, and you can't pull things across most barrier wards, but the ones on the chamber are one-way, so I can bring things in. Nothing gets out, which is why all this magic is still here._

He approached a bowl of chalk-and-water paste that was sitting near the circle and transfigured a simple knife from a rock. It was strange to watch him work magic from inside her own head. She could almost see him reaching out with his power and twisting the world to suit him.

 _That's how wandless magic really works. Don't let anyone ever tell you differently,_ he thought at her. There was something like a smile behind it, though her face didn't move.

Without warning, Tom slit Mary's right wrist over the bowl.

 _Ouch!_ she thought, taken by surprise.

 _Don't be a baby. It's just a little cut._

 _I know, but it still hurts._

Tom said nothing in response, but when he had all the blood he apparently needed, he healed the cut, and the pain was gone as though it had never been there. The knife became a paintbrush, and he mixed the blood into the chalk to make a thick paint, which was then used to place runes along the charcoal lines. Mary ignored the strange sensations of his moving her muscles, focusing on her meditation in the back of her mind. When he was done, he vanished the charcoal, leaving only the brownish runes and stepped into the circle.

 _This isn't a proper ritual, per se_ , he explained as he double checked the symbols and folded her body into a seated position. _It's more of a runic magnet and funnel for ambient magic – an adaptation of an enchanting element. This thorn rune that we're sitting on is my symbol, and I'll have to keep in contact with it through my magic so that the power will be funneled into me. We'll be activating all the runes at once using one of my own spells. I'll need to use your magic to do that, because it's your blood in the runes. Since we're sitting on top of the thorn rune, you need to focus on rejecting the very idea of getting burned. Aside from that, just stay quiet and let me work._

 _Okay_ , she responded. She really didn't want to mess up whatever he was doing, especially since it sounded difficult and dangerous, and her body would be sitting right in the middle of it. _There is no possible way I'm going to get burned._

Tom grinned, taking hold of Mary's magic and directing it outward to touch the runes. She could feel her blood in each one, calling to her magic. When he was certain that they had made contact with every rune, he whispered aloud, " _Adustulare!"_ The runes began to burn, the magic carving and activating them all at once. Mary concentrated very hard on the fact that this strange fire would not hurt her.

The power around them, so thick in the air, began to turn and focus, as though running into a drainpipe. Mary had a moment of extreme panic as she realized that all of this power was going to run through _her_ to get to Tom, but it was fleeting, because as soon as the power struck, it blanked out every thought in her head. It was not unlike the power channeled at her very first Yule ritual, but instead of settling on her from the outside, it was invading her, pulled through her body and mind, stripping all that she was down to nothing. She was fairly certain that she fainted, or would have, if she was the only consciousness in her body.

The next thing she knew, Tom was leaning over her, actually glowing. She blinked. "It worked, then?"

"Oh, yes. I feel great. You?" he actually _giggled_. That, along with the fact that he had actually asked after her wellbeing, was so foreign to what she knew of him that she did a double take.

Now that he mentioned it, she actually felt fairly energized herself, but… "Are you high?" she had to ask.

"Hmmm… I'm going to go with yes. A little. It will pass, I'm sure." He snapped his fingers again for his time spell. "Only three. Damn. I told the twins I'd let them have at _least_ eight hours. Right. Well. You should go back to seeking your symbol. Oh. But before you do, I need blood from you for the golem circle."

Mary held out her left arm without a word. The boy, still more excited than she had yet seen him, vanished the contents of his bowl and, completely eschewing a knife, traced a finger over her wrist. A cut opened in the wake of the static sensation of his magic, deeper than the first. The bowl filled quickly, and he healed her again, magic tingling outward from the deepest point of the cut to the surface, leaving no trace of a scar. He floated away, not even pretending to walk, and Mary returned to the sitting room.


	19. Easter Special, three days late

**[A/N: Chapter 14 Part 2. Okay, I just couldn't justify drawing the Chamber scene out until Wednesday. DOUBLE POST - Make sure you read Saturn Rising, which is the previous chapter!]**

* * *

[Tuesday, 13 April 1993 - Wednesday, 14 April 1993]

The twins were sleeping soundly on the floor in front of the library door when Mary returned, back to back. Ginny was awake, curled up in an armchair and staring off into space. Mary had to wonder if she had slept at all. She gathered her mirror from the side table and took a seat at the end of the couch, as far as she could get from the youngest Weasley, and resumed her meditation. By the time she finally managed to find her symbol, Ginny had joined the twins in sleep, still curled in the chair. Mary wasn't tired yet, so she grabbed another apple and slipped out to find Tom.

"I figured it out!" she announced happily, skipping over to the glowing boy. He was carefully levitating droplets of blood so dark it was almost black from his bowl to a series of runes.

"What is it?"

"The symbol for the seventh month."

Tom looked momentarily confused. "You mean Libra? Ohm over a bar?"

"Yes, the seventh month." Mary thought about what she'd just said for a moment, then carefully tried it again, in English. "Libra."

Tom laughed at her. "Didn't realize you were speaking Parsel?"

She blushed. "No. How long…?"

"Since the end of the power-drawing ritual."

"Damn it! Why didn't you say something?"

"It's not as though I have much occasion to speak it either," he said with a shrug.

"Do you grow out of speaking it accidentally?" Normally Mary knew when she was hearing or speaking Parsel, but then, normally there was a snake involved. She assumed that because she had been using it so much in the last two days (as compared to normally) that she had been getting confused.

"Well, keeping in mind that I've never actually met any other speakers, I managed to get it sorted out around my thirteenth birthday. It helps, I think, if you use it more often. At first you'll probably slip up more, but you should at least start noticing when it's happening. You've been teaching that Luna girl, right?"

Mary nodded, then realized that Tom wasn't actually looking at her. "How did you know about that?"

"She told me. She had the diary from the middle of January to the middle of February. Interesting girl." Mary nodded again. Luna was nothing if not interesting. She would have to ask the girl why she hadn't mentioned the diary. "Well, that will help, I expect. And there are a couple books in the library that weren't destroyed on the basics of casting spells in Parsel. Practicing that should help, too. Some things like _finite_ you can just use their Parsel equivalent – that's actually how I realized I was switching accidentally – some spells weren't working like I thought they should – but there's a syllabary for enchanting that can manage some interesting effects. And of course, if you ever find books written in Parsel, it will actually be written using that syllabary. Definitely worth the read."

"Why are you being so nice to me?" The girl asked suddenly. It hadn't occurred to her before, but Tom had explained everything she asked so far, and even some things she hadn't. This was outright _helpful_ , and he hadn't even asked for anything in return.

"The short answer is 'why not.'" He smirked, still not looking up from the drops of blood he was still levitating to various runes. "The longer answer is that I've been trapped in a diary for fifty years, with no one to talk to for most of that time, and I've spent the last seven months mostly talking to Ginny, who, it must be said, is not the best conversationalist. There's always the incentive that this will be much easier with your willing cooperation, so there is a payoff for keeping you happy, of course, but you've been asking good questions. And I like teaching. It's all about shaping your students' minds, after all. So I don't mind answering."

Mary could think of nothing to say to that. "Oh."

"Come on," Tom added, finally finished. "I'll show you where you need to put your Libras, and how to empower them."

"Rituals aren't always like this, are they?"

"You've been to other rituals. You know they're not."

"I mean with all the runes activated by different people at different times. I would have expected one person to do them all in order or something."

"Ah, no, this is a much larger scale, and we're working around a very unusual set of circumstances. Normally, I would do the same thing here as I did with the smaller circle – even if I didn't burn it into the floor, I would mix my blood into the paint and reach out to empower everything simultaneously, or at least most of them. If you have something like yours and the basilisk's runes, you'd need to do those separately, since they couldn't have any other blood in them. The next best thing would be to have one person draw and empower as they go, but since I have to explain each meaning to the boys, that wouldn't really work. This is more like an extensive warding project, where the runes are carved and then empowered by a number of different wizards, and then activated by a controller at the end. We're doing a little better than that, though, because the twins' magical signatures are almost identical. I'd guess Fred does more offensive charms when they collaborate, and George does more defensive. It will read as being consistently empowered, anyway, except for your personal identification runes. When we activate the circles, I'll basically set them off in the right order, but I won't need to put more magic into any of it."

"So it's okay that they're fading?"

"Yes. It's expected. If we carved them, they would hold the power longer, but these will last three days, which is long enough for our purposes."

Mary thought for a long moment as they walked around the everted bubble of the trefoil. The largest "circle" had been lined with both chalk and charcoal paints. On the standard loops, the white was on the outside, but here, white was on the inside. She still hadn't asked why.

"Since the twins are powering the ritual, does that mean they're going to be… responsible for it?"

"Do you mean, is this going to stain your immortal souls and make you Black Mages or some such rubbish?"

"No – wait, it doesn't, does it?"

"No, you have to dedicate yourself to one of the dark powers in a specific aspect to be a Black Mage."

"Oh, no. I meant since they're casting it, do the Powers answer them, or come through them, like at the Sabbat rituals, or what?"

"Ah, no. I'll be activating and directing it, so I'll interact with the Powers. You four will be linked into the breaking and binding ritual as kind of… counterweights, basically, to stop it all collapsing while I'm demonic, but you won't actually _do_ anything, or probably even notice anything different at that point. Now, just being this close and this involved in any Black ritual is going to incline you a bit more toward the dark, but not appreciably more than celebrating Yule. If you were actually activating it, you'd be firmly rooting yourself on the dark side of things."

"So the power circle…?"

"Not Black. Dark, yes, because it involved taking foreign power and using it to add to your own, or in this case, mine, but there were no Powers involved. I'd say you're… neutral leaning dark, at the moment. And that's not likely to change much unless you start doing a lot of rituals outside of the holidays. Otherwise you'll shift slowly back to neutral over time."

"They call it 'balanced' now," Mary noted idly, vaguely relieved that she wasn't going to end up a dark witch over this.

"Whichever. Here," they had finally reached the spot for the first Libra symbol. They were not far from the point they had started at, originally, but presumably there had been a reason for walking all the way around the circle. At the very least, she had gotten to see the chains of pretty, empowered runes. They reminded her of muggle Christmas lights, though much larger.

Tom floated one of the bowls of charcoal paint to her. "This is fairly simple. You just paint your symbol on the line, and then reach your magic out to touch it like I did with the power circle. When you feel you've made a connection with the rune – and mind it won't be as obvious with no blood connection – start pouring power into it while thinking about the most important things that make you yourself. It will start to glow. When you feel it's not taking any more power, and it won't be a lot, seal it by saying _theto_ , with the intention of capping it off and saving it for later."

"Got it."

"Go ahead. I'll watch you do the first one."

As instructed, Mary painted in the ohm-symbol over a bar, then let her hand hover over it as she had seen Fred do, trying to push her magic out in the same way Tom had done. After a moment, she thought she felt something like a hollow spot, pulling at her magic. She pushed more power in the same direction, trying to think of what made her herself. _Mary Elizabeth_ , she thought _, Slytherin's Heir, Girl Who Lived, parentless, friend of Maia and Lils, I love to be free and hate to be used, I don't know… I'm just_ me. Thankfully, at that point, she realized that the rune wasn't taking in any more power, so she whispered, " _theto,_ " and capped it off, before opening her eyes to see it glowing the same bright green she saw when she looked in the mirror.

Tom nodded. Mary let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "I've set white lights over all the other spots you need to define yourself," he said, taking no notice of her relief. "Make sure you get all of them. I'm going to go wake the twins so we can finish empowering everything else, and then I'll do a final check while you all rest, and then we can finally do this." He actually sounded excited. Mary was amazed. She was ready to be done with all this herself. She missed her bed, and thinking of Hermione and Lilian reminded her that they must be worried.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

There were at least forty white lights indicating spots where Mary needed to place her symbol, though she lost count after twenty-seven. She painted and empowered each one carefully, finishing just in time to watch the twins empower the last of the basilisk runes. Then, as Tom began to double-check their work, they took a bit of string and painted a large white circle, tangential to each of the lobes of the trefoil. There were no runes on the circle, and it appeared to be merely a guideline, because when they finished, one of them yelled across the room, "Riddle, which way is north?" Tom pointed absently toward the statue. The necromantic loop was apparently oriented due south. The boys continued with their painting, creating a large black diamond tangential to the circle, its points at the cardinal directions. They added more runes at each of the cardinal directions on the circle and the diamond, as well as the intersection points between the two. These must have been standard, because Tom didn't seem interested in them at all.

When they were done, they dragged Mary back to the sitting area to have another meal and nap until Riddle came to tell them he was ready. Such concepts as regular meals and normal hours had vanished along with the sun. None of them had any idea of the time, though Mary was fairly certain it was still Wednesday morning. Instead of having a nap, however, the three who had been actively helping with the ritual preparations spent the interval explaining what was expected to happen to Ginny, who had been avoiding everything to do with the process, but had finally asked what she had to do to get out of the thrice-damned Chamber. They had nearly finished when Tom reappeared.

"Everything looks correct," he announced. "If you are all ready, we can begin. There's no stopping once we've started, so mind you use the facilities and get food or drink before if you need it."

Ginny headed for the door to the cave with a grumble about stupid Slytherin and the stupid lack of proper facilities. Mary didn't have the heart to let her go squat in a corner again. All other things aside, it was terribly unsanitary. She pointed the younger girl to the WC, and watched in amusement as Ginny very vocally refused to speak to Tom over his little trick the day before. He wasn't bothered.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Finally, it was time to begin the proper rituals. At one of the twins' insistence, Tom checked the time. It was two in the afternoon on Wednesday, which meant they had been in the Chamber for a little more than two whole days already, and had been preparing this mad Frankenstein ritual almost as long, if they counted the time Tom had spent in the library laying it out.

The first part was the invocation of the Chaotic Power in the Aspect of the Lady, Luck.

Tom dimmed the lights, for effect, as the five of them stood around the circle he had seared into the stone floor with the power-drawing earlier. "We call," he declared dramatically, "on she who rolls the dice; who governs the gamble, the chance and the hazard; who watches over the unexpected, blessing and folly, accident and happenstance, keeping the balance of ease and hardship! We call upon serendipity, fluke and fortune! We call upon the Lady, known as Luck!"

A presence slowly coalesced in the center of their informal circle, solidifying into the form of a woman of indeterminate age, dressed in what seemed to be Greek robes, or perhaps Roman. Mary suspected that Hermione would have known what they were called, but she certainly didn't. Her hair was black as night, her skin whiter than any human, glowing more clearly than Tom, and her eyes a piercing green, brighter than Mary's and sparkling with mischief.

When she spoke, her voice was low and teasing. "You know, Tom Riddle," she said to the one who had called her, "most would think it folly to call upon chance to govern a ritual such as this."

"I am not most," he grinned, matching her teasing tone. "This is naught if not a gamble, and I can think of no more appropriate goddess to govern its progress."

The Lady smiled at him. "And what would you offer my brothers and myself, when all is said and done? Nothing for nothing, they say in your House. You must pay to play…"

"I would offer the free power in this chamber all around us, the magic of a great serpent, now dead. She was a worthy companion, and I would her power make a worthy sacrifice, to be apportioned as you who govern the act see fit between the others who answer the call."

"An acceptable forfeit, bold child, and fitting, for yourself and your companions. If you lose, of course, your power, too, will be taken – there will be nothing left of you."

"Ah, but if I win," Tom said, his tone pure bravado, "A feat of magic unlike any the world has ever seen, an unlikely twist in the weaving of Fate, and a new element of uncertainty in the future."

"Agreed," the goddess said, nodding to the boy. He bowed deeply in return. "Cast the die, Tom Riddle, and let things fall out as they may." Her body dissolved again, but her presence remained, a dark and heavy addition to the power already filling the air.

Tom led the way to the second circle, the one for the golem-making process. He positioned the five of them around it where the points of a pentacle would be. He stood at the north, with Mary at his right and Ginny at his left, the twins anchoring the two southern points. Their only role in the rituals was to bear witness to his activities. As the twins had explained to Ginny and Mary, they were a decent enough group for it – two male, two female; two children, two (technically) adults at fifteen; all touched by darkness in one way or another, but still fundamentally balanced. Tom would have positioned them with these dichotomies in mind.

The bowl of blood was already waiting in the center of the circle. Mary supposed it was left over from marking the trefoil runes before, since she hadn't been asked to donate an additional sample. She felt Tom's magic extend to fill the circle, activating the runes in one fell swoop. They blazed with white light. She understood nothing as he spoke the invocation. It was certainly no language she had ever heard spoken before, and might not even have been limited to a single language.

There was a sense of an additional presence joining them in the circle, wrapping around them like heavy cotton wool. It pushed them toward the center, and then, when none of them moved from their positions, burst through them, entering the circle from every direction at once. It took Mary's breath away, though Tom's litany was unbroken.

The blood in the bowl rose up, a ball of darkness distinguishable even in the now-very-poor light – was it really only Tom's glow? The darkness seemed more a hole in the universe, a complete absence of _anything_ , rather than simply darkened blood. It began to grow, shifting and changing, spinning slowly and developing into a humanoid shape as Tom's chant increased in intensity, repeating every thirty seconds or so.

Mary couldn't have said how long she had watched, fascinated, as the ritual (and the golem) took shape in front of her, but she couldn't imagine Tom could go on like this much longer. Yet still the pace of his invocation, or spell, or whatever it was that he chanted endlessly, increased. The strain was evident in its pitch, creeping upward. The crescendo reached its peak suddenly, at least for the human witnesses, who had no idea exactly what the details of any of the rituals entailed. The goddess, Mary thought, probably did.

At the moment of climax, Tom's voice broke. Mary would have looked to him, to see if he looked stricken, or if this was meant to happen, but she could not tear her eyes away from the shape in front of her: in that moment, the darkness had become a man.

Mary marveled at him as he turned slowly in the air. His hair was dark, skin pale and limbs long. He was taller than Tom, Mary thought, though it was hard to estimate in his horizontal position, with broader shoulders and a stronger jaw. In short, he looked very much like the man Tom might be in his mid-twenties, which she supposed was probably his age, if one counted the years he had been "awake" in the diary. She flushed as she saw that he was also, as might be expected when a teenage boy was creating his own body, quite well endowed, even in his inactive position. She did not have much experience for comparison, mind, but it was, at least, larger than those she had seen on the Greek statues Catherine had showed her last summer.

Tom was still speaking, winding down the ritual. The new body floated gently to the floor, curling around the bowl, now empty. The Constructive power left the circle, its presence adding to that of the Lady in the air around them. Eventually Tom's voice trailed off, and he bowed to the circle, then turned and bowed to the space outside the circle, where the Powers hovered.

He cleared his incorporeal throat and said, "It's done." The four witnesses relaxed and left their places as he levitated the body again, holding it upright. Mary was surprised to see it was only a few inches taller than Tom from the diary, though it was recognizably him, and, though she hadn't noticed earlier, breathing. "Mary, come take its pulse," he ordered, clearly irritated with his inability to touch it properly. All Mary, who had never taken a pulse before, could say was that the pulse definitely existed, and was regular and strong.

"Excellent. Possession time again," he said with a grin.

He slid behind her eyes before she could blink, still holding the golem upright, and traced her left finger over her right wrist, opening yet another cut, just as he had after the power-drawing ritual, though not nearly as deep. He dipped one of her fingers in the blood that welled forth, finger-painting on the golem's pale skin, making reddish-orange streaks. Mary, pushed aside again, wondered idly how it was that she was right-handed, and Tom left-handed, and where, exactly, the light was coming from, since even Tom was not available now as a source. He declined to address these thoughts, though he did respond when she wondered if the placement of the runes, a line of them down the left arm and two lines on the left shoulder blade, extending halfway down the back, as well as five individual symbols on the right pectoral and upper arm, were significant. Apparently, where they were marked didn't matter, but since they would be permanently burned into his skin, their placement was, in his words, artistically arranged.

Just as with the power circle, when he was satisfied with his runes, Tom took hold of her magic and used it to activate them, burning them into the golem's flesh until they turned black. It didn't react. Tom said it wasn't conscious to feel it, which Mary couldn't help but think was a good thing. She picked up an ambivalent feeling from Tom as he slipped out of her mind, returning full control to her. She shivered. Hopefully that wouldn't have to happen again. Ginny was looking at Mary in disgust. The twins seemed fascinated.

That accomplished, they moved on to the second, two-part ritual. Tom placed the golem in its leaf of the trefoil before joining the diary in his own. Fred and George were instructed to take the north and south points of the diagram, respectively, while Mary was sent to the east, and Ginny to the west. They sat, cross-legged, to wait and bear witness.

Tom, whose leaf was closest to Mary and Fred, began to speak again, without further preamble, this time in Latin, though Mary couldn't make out any of the words or the meaning behind them. The cardinal runes and those tying the diamond and circle denoting the edges of the enormous design were the first to flare into light. The circle was like ink, its runes silver, and the diamond the opposite. Where they joined, the runes burned like natural fire. Mary could feel the containment circle recognize her, a slight brush of static against her magic. The smaller, complex tangle of lines around Tom lit next, the runes glowing or drinking in the light, according to their line. So far as Mary could tell, the colors they had been when they were charged did not matter at all.

Mary noticed that Tom had neglected to heal her wrist in his excitement, just as the Destructive Power manifested, whipping around the circle and stirring up the ambient magic like a small, unstable cyclone. This ritual was the shortest of the three, and no sooner had the Power arrived than it coalesced into what Mary could only describe as a bolt of darkness, edged in gold. It struck the Diary, sinking into it and then exploding outward, tearing the magic of the book apart, though the pages were left intact. Tom's form faltered for an instant, flickering, before he regained his composure and completed the spell. The Destructive Power rose up to wait with the others. The air was so heavy now with potential and magic that it felt as though a storm was about to break, like lightning would have to strike among them to release the buildup.

Tom's smaller circle vanished in a gout of blue flames. He stood, moving as though in a trance to the center of the trefoil. To Mary's surprise, he seemed to leave part of himself behind, a glowing mass of power, dark and roiling. He spoke from the center of the circle, in Latin again, invoking the Binding Power; then in Greek, for the Cooperative Power. They manifested more slowly than any of the others had done, and in a more contained way. Each presence was drawn to one of the three leaves of the circle, the Binding Power in the necromantic leaf (where a poison-green spark had appeared without Mary's notice), and the Cooperative Power raising up the golem. Finally, the unknown language, again, called down the hovering Constructive Power. This came down to envelope the magic Tom had left behind him.

There were no words for this last ritual. It was too new, too unlike anything that had ever been done, or at least anything that Tom knew of. There were elements of the binding ritual of the Horcrux, yes, and elements of the vampire ritual, what he could remember of it, but it was fundamentally different from both of these. It operated on intent, defined by Tom's force of will alone. He knew exactly what he wanted from each of the Powers, and by their natures, they would know as well.

The trefoil burst into the same blue fire that had flared at the end of the second ritual, twisting where it ought into the shapes of the underlying runes. As though that was some sort of signal, the Powers rushed the center of the circle, converging on Tom, carrying, Mary thought, their respective elements to the binding.

The magic in the air rose to a point where it was almost painful, and then surpassed it. There was a keening sound from the center of the circle, but the whirling did not cease. Finally, an eternity later, or no time at all, when Mary was certain she could not bear another instant of this torture (for a third time), the Lady's face appeared in the darkness. She winked, and dropped into the tempest what was, unmistakably, a die.

The magic collapsed inward, the Powers gone in an instant, and all light vanished from the cavern, along with the pain, and the excess magic in the air. Mary could breathe again, and it wasn't until she noticed this that she realized she hadn't been. No sooner had she made that realization than she collapsed, the last of her strength gone.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

The first thing Mary noticed when she woke up was that there was light, and it was directly over her face. The second thing she noticed was that Tom was producing it, and using a wand to do so. The third thing was that it was not the familiar, teen-aged Tom, but the fully adult Tom they had created as a golem.

She sat up, head pounding, and looked around to see all three of the Weasleys sitting together on the floor, the boys supporting Ginny, who looked about as good as Mary felt. All the lines and runes were gone. The Lady hovered to one side, apparently enjoying the tableau. She caught Mary's eye and grinned.

"Are we satisfied, Mr. Riddle?" she called, always teasing.

Mary nodded at Tom, and he smiled, genuinely for once, before calling back to the goddess, "There's just one thing left, Lady." He made an elaborate motion, as though kissing his fingertips and blowing it to her, producing a tiny pink ball of wandless magic that he sent across instead. "A kiss for Luck." He winked at the goddess and she laughed.

"You charming _rogue_. I'll be keeping an eye on you," she said, and left, the lack of her presence leaving what felt like a void, after three days of drowning in magic.

"Were you just _flirting_ ," "With the _Lady_?" the twins asked, as though they absolutely could not believe what they had just seen.

Tom smirked at them, completely unrepentantly. "She started it, letting me pull this off." He spun in a circle joyfully. "You have _no idea_ how amazing it is to have a body. It's just… euphoric. All the time."

"Are you high again?" Mary asked, head still pounding.

"Yes," Tom giggled. "Absolutely and unequivocally. And as I said last time, it will wear off eventually."

Mary rolled her eyes as the twins snorted with laughter, and even Ginny looked like she was hiding a smile.

"Can we go home, now?" the younger girl asked plaintively.

" _You_ can go home," Tom said. "I think I'm going to go to America. I hear good things about Miskatonic."

Mary cast a time charm. It felt wonderful to use a wand again. It was nearly six, which was good, because she was starving. "Do you think we could just show up in the Great Hall and get dinner?" she asked the crowd.

"If you do, I'd be tempted to stick around and watch you try," Tom said, but then added more seriously, "Before you go, we need to alter your memories. I don't particularly want to be hunted down and held accountable for the actions of Lord Voldemort, and I doubt any of you want to be sent to Azkaban for participating in a class seven experimental Black Arts ritual."

Ginny looked as though she wanted to object, but her brothers were already nodding.

"We thought you'd say something like that."

"We've also been thinking about the diary."

"Something like that needs to be _thoroughly_ destroyed."

"Or else it's going to give away the story fairly easily."

"We'll stab it with a basilisk fang," Tom said. "Basilisk venom destroys _everything_. The story I'm thinking of runs the same until the lights go out, but with the diary out here somewhere in the open, instead of hidden away in the Chamber. I start railing and threatening you for destroying my basilisk, as though Voldemort hadn't managed that quite thoroughly already, and one of you bright sparks takes the book and impales it on a fang. Personally I like Mary for it – Girl Who Lived Defeats Dark Lord Again sort of thing."

"Oh, please, no," Mary said, but it was too late. The twins had the look of a prank decided on in their eyes.

"Perfect." "All credit to the Girl Who Lived!"

"Fuck you, Tom."

"Maybe when you're older. So. Ink goes everywhere, I die in a shrieking mess, you lot get stuck down here for three days until the magic dissipates enough that you can get your wands to work, and you wander around until you find the way out. I'll show you the tunnel up to the Slytherin dorms. That one in the bathroom used to be a closet a century ago, and now it's just a pain to deal with, especially getting out. I'll modify your memories after we get to the point that Mary can find the way back to the dorms, or one of the other exits, if you don't want to take Gryffindors through the commons. I'll send the true memories back to you by owl once I'm safely out of the country."

"I want all my other memories back, too!" Ginny demanded.

"They're under blanket _obliviates_. I'm sure whoever questions you will release them. Though you may not want to see them, after. For starters, there were five suicide attempts, not just the two."

Ginny swallowed hard under her brothers' concerned looks. Mary would have bet a lot of money they were wondering how they had missed so much this past year.

Tom, unconcerned, handed the diary to Mary. "Impale this on a basilisk fang," he instructed her.

She did as she was told. Ink spurted everywhere as all the enchantments _not_ related to the Horcrux failed.

"I hate you so much," she glared at the man, stuffing the ruined book in a pocket and pulling out her wand to siphon the ink off of herself.

"No, wait!" "You can't!" the twins stopped her.

"They're right," Tom said, with a grin at his dripping Heir. "You wouldn't have had access to magic, according to the story we're writing." He did send a drying charm at her, which made things slightly better.

"So, any objections to the plan?" he asked. No one offered any, so he led them back through the Chamber proper, through a door none of them had noticed and into a bedchamber.

The universal reaction to this was, "There's a _bed_. Why did we spend the last two nights sleeping on the floor?" To which Tom calmly replied, "You never asked. And it amused me."

He collected a number of empty vials from a cupboard and ordered a full-length mirror to open in Parsel, revealing a passage which led upward through a series of tunnels and spiral staircases. After a good twenty minutes' walk, they reached a passage marked with an ouroboros, which meant it led to the Slytherin commons.

There the party paused. Tom carefully removed all memories after the basilisk died, replacing them with the bare bones of their story, which their minds would build up into realistic memories over the next few minutes. Then he disillusioned himself thoroughly and completely locked down the last five minutes of their memories. It would likely go unnoticed, and at the very least should effectively hide what had actually happened. He watched as the kids spotted the ouroboros and followed the tunnel back to the common room, then retreated back the way they had come, to take another track toward the Forest and freedom.

Wednesday, 14 April 1993 Somewhere Under Slytherin

On finding the way to the Slytherin common room after a small eternity wandering in the darkness, Mary elected to go directly there. She and the Weasleys were exhausted, starving, and most importantly, dying of thirst. Anyone who had a problem with Gryffindors in their common room could bite her.


	20. Meetings and Misdirections

**[A/N: Another long chapter, 2 parts]**

* * *

 **Chapter 15: Meetings and Misdirections**

Monday, 12 April 1993 

_Hermione_

If asked what she considered her role in her group of friends, Hermione Granger would answer without hesitation that Lilian was their leader and motivator, Elizabeth was their cool head in a crisis, and she herself was their problem solver. Aerin was more of a consultant than a core member of their little group, and the Twins were reliable – albeit somewhat quirky and irregular – allies. The fourth-year Slytherins were allies only so long as their goals aligned. And Luna, the newest member of their little conspiracy, was simply infuriating. If she was feeling especially kind, Hermione might say that Luna's role was the unconventional, but she rarely felt that kindly toward the girl.

The first-year Ravenclaw was, so far as Hermione could tell, absolutely mad, though as Aerin pointed out, there did seem to be some semblance of method to her madness. It was only thanks to the elder Moon's insistence that Hermione had tolerated the addition of Luna to their end-of-term revising group.

On Monday morning, the three Ravenclaws convened in their Common Room to work on Charms, which was a cumulative exam for the older years, which meant that Hermione and Aerin would get some benefit out of helping Luna revise. Instead of revising, however, the youngest girl was distracting her older companions with speculation about the Chamber of Secrets. While Hermione was all for trying to figure out that particular mystery, she did think that there were more appropriate times than during a study session.

It truly didn't help that their marvelous plan to find the Heir of Slytherin had failed. Yes, the Weasleys still had to question their first-years, but nobody really thought the Heir of Slytherin was a first-year Gryffindor. She considered it a failure already. Despite months of work collecting ingredients, brewing and distilling the potion, and drugging three-quarters of the school, they were no closer to knowing what was going on. Hermione couldn't help the traitorous little thought that perhaps Professor Snape had missed someone. After all, she could hardly find any information on legilimency in the library, and it sounded like a rather imprecise science, this mind-reading. The Slytherins all trusted him, of course, but… what if he was wrong?

After a thoroughly disappointing Charms review, Hermione headed to the main library, where she was due to meet Lilian and Elizabeth to go over their "break essay" for Potions. She made her way downstairs, checking, as most Ravenclaws did anymore, around corners with her hand-mirror, to find Lilian waiting outside.

"Bad news, Jeanie," she said as soon as Hermione was close enough to talk. "Liz got herself kicked out of the library hours ago."

"Well what happened? Where is she?" asked the irritated Ravenclaw. Some people just didn't take their schoolwork seriously enough, in her opinion. There were only ten weeks left until exams!

"One of the twins came in yelling for her, and Pince kicked her out because of him." Lilian made a face, and Hermione mirrored it back at her. Even the Ravenclaws didn't particularly like the librarian.

"So did she go back to Slytherin or what?"

"I have no idea. I was outside with Blaise and Daphne working on… a thing."

"A _thing_? Wait, never mind," Hermione grabbed Lilian's arm and towed her into the nearest classroom. "So either Fred or George was so agitated that he shouted in the library – and he was alone – and he just dragged Elizabeth away?"

Lilian shrugged. "Yeah, that's what it sounded like from what Theo said."

The Slytherin obviously wasn't getting it. "Lilian, why would he do that? There's only one reason that _one_ Weasley twin would be running through the castle looking for a Slytherin."

"You don't think…"

"They caught the heir? Well, I admit I thought it was unlikely that they would, but can you think of a better explanation?"

"We should go see Snape," Lilian declared. "If that's what happened, that's where they would have gone."

 _Snape_

Severus Snape could not think of a single instance when he had encountered Lilian Moon and Hermione Granger together, without Mary Potter. That was his first sign that something was amiss on the Monday of the Easter Holiday. Or perhaps the first sign was that the two of them had appeared at his office outside of his usual office hours. In any case, he was not surprised that they had something more dire on their minds than the content of their holiday essays. He would admit some slight surprise that the more dire situation involved a Weasley twin, Mary Potter, and the Chamber of Secrets, but after the Dragon Incident, he wasn't _that_ surprised. Besides, despite the Heir of Slytherin nonsense, he hadn't had to discipline their little group all year – they were overdue for a meeting.

"Miss Moon," he had greeted the girls as they crept into his office, "Miss Granger. No Miss Potter?"

"Ah, no, sir," Hermione said, twisting her fingers together. Lilian was biting her lower lip nervously. "We were wondering if she hadn't been by this afternoon, possibly with a Weasley?"

Severus had raised an eyebrow at this ill-phrased request for information. "Should she have been?"

"She's missing, sir," Lilian blurted out.

Severus felt his eyes narrow of their own accord. "How long has she been 'missing'?" he asked, injecting as much sarcasm as he could muster into the word. "And why did you expect that she would have been here?"

His gaze flicked between the two girls. Predictably, the Ravenclaw cracked first. "Since this morning. She was kicked out of the library because one of the Weasley twins came in shouting for her – did you get a time, Lili?"

"Just after ten," Lilian said quickly.

Severus suppressed a sigh and performed a quick _tempus_ charm. "It's been less than four hours. You are aware that Hogwarts is a rather _large_ castle, are you not?"

Lilian looked as though she would like to latch onto this conciliatory statement, in the hopes that her friend was simply planning a prank in an alcove somewhere, but Hermione wasn't having it. "It's not really so much how long she's been gone that's concerning, Professor," she said, "But the circumstances under which she disappeared."

Severus waved a hand for the Ravenclaw to proceed.

"We, that is, the Weasleys and ourselves, have been trying to solve the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets and its monster. If any of us found anything, we were supposed to bring it to you immediately, except, well, we didn't think you would take it well if the Weasley twins burst in claiming to have caught the Heir of Slytherin, or with some knowledge of where the Chamber is or the like, so they were to get one of the Slytherins first. It's the only reason we can think of that only _one_ of the Weasley twins would have gone to fetch Lizzie – because the other was guarding something, or incapacitated. So we thought they might have come by."

A loud sigh greeted this explanation. "I suppose you lot are behind the persistent rumors of a basilisk?"

The girls nodded. "It's the only thing that makes sense," the bushy-haired girl elaborated. "A gorgon wouldn't have stuck around, and a temorral would have needed real food, so it would have been caught by now. Basilisks normally kill with their gaze, but Luna pointed out none of the victims have actually _met_ its gaze directly."

"Thus, I suppose, the sudden fascination with pocket-mirrors among the student body?"

"Yes, sir," Lilian admitted.

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose, warding off the oncoming headache which would doubtless be associated with this entire situation. The worst part was how terribly _earnest_ the two girls looked, even Moon. "Very well," he snapped, "if Miss Potter has not turned up by dinner, I will handle the matter. It would not do to create a panic over nothing, after all. If that is all, you may leave."

His dismissal was rather abrupt and not a little rude, but knowing Potter's magnetic attraction for trouble and the Weasleys' penchant for mischief, he suspected he had better not wait for dinner. That meant he had a rather complex Dark tracking charm to perform, and he could not do that with students present. It was one of the few terms of his 'employment' that he actually agreed with and therefore abided by, that the students ought not to be directly exposed to Class 3 or higher Dark spells. He took no notice of the girls' fumbled thanks and farewells as they stumbled out into the dungeons proper.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

"Minerva," Severus said sharply, robes billowing behind him as he swept into her office two hours later.

"Severus? What…?" The old woman was clearly taken aback by his unannounced arrival.

"It has been brought to my attention that one of my students is missing," he began, but the acting Headmistress interrupted.

"Severus," she said repressively, "it's a holiday. They're probably just skulking about the abandoned sectors and hiding from their essays. It's a big castle, and I'm afraid I haven't the time –"

"Mary Potter," he said, cutting off the impending tirade about how overworked Minerva was. It truly wasn't fair to have heaped the few Head duties she hadn't already been performing onto her when Dumbledore had been evicted, but that was neither here nor there.

"What?" Shocked. Taken aback. Good.

"Potter is the missing student. I have it on good account that the girl has been poking around after the Chamber of Secrets, and my tracking spell indicates–"

"Tracking charms don't work inside the school," Minerva objected reflexively.

Severus raised an eyebrow at her and let his aura flare around him. She would feel it as a cold breeze, a reminder of his darkness. "You forget to whom you speak, Minerva. This one does."

She shivered, and Severus pulled his magic back, hiding a smirk. He did enjoy intimidating his old professors, on the rare occasions when they forgot that they were now colleagues. "Very well, Severus, but–"

" _As I was saying_ , my tracking spell indicates that the girl is somewhere below the school, at least two levels below the lowest even _I_ have been able to access. Unfortunately this suggests that the girl has, in fact, found and entered the Chamber. I _highly_ doubt that she would have done so alone, and as this was brought to my attention by the two students most likely to have accompanied her, I fear we must assume something more… sinister has occurred."

Minerva now looked very, very pale. "But – the monster? There isn't really an Heir?" Severus sneered at her.

"Didn't Albus tell you it's the same Heir as last time? The Dark Lord, then. He always was one to brag. Probably possessing a student, somehow, now that Quirrell's dead, and before you say it, it's not any of the Slytherins, I questioned all of them using legilimency. Don't give me that look, I warned them, which is better than Albus did."

"You Know Who – in the school – two years in a row?"

Why, Severus asked himself for the fifth time since Valentine's Day, had the Governors chosen to promote Minerva to the office of the Head? He would be the last to insult her courage, but her leadership skills in a crisis left much to be desired.

"Pull it together, Minerva. You need to place the school on lockdown, find out who else is missing. If we're exceedingly lucky, we can do this quickly enough that he won't know he's been found out, and we will be able to figure out the primary victim."

"Y-yes, of course, I'll… right away."

Severus rolled his eyes and tried again to prod her in the right direction. "Merlin, McGonagall, where's the harridan who rode into battle on a hippogriff and once transfigured an entire wing of Death Eaters into mice? Pull. It. Together."

Minerva glared at him. "That was different – the students–"

There was nothing else for it: he would have to be _nice._ "It's no different," he interrupted softly. "Just another battle in this never-ending war. What was it that terror Kerr used to say? 'Kilt up, lads, there's death ter be wrought?'" The woman couldn't help but smile a bit at his terrible impression of the old Order field commander. He had died before Severus had switched sides, but he used to shout it across the battlefields as a rallying cry. "You were only ever fighting to protect them. It's _no_ different. Lock down the wards, activate the compulsion for students to return to their dorms. I'll call the other Heads of House, and we'll find out who's missing."

The woman nodded sharply. "Yes, of course." Severus turned to go, but before he could reach the door, she spoke again, and he turned to look at her. "Severus? Thank you."

"Don't mention it," he said, his workaday sneer fixed firmly in place.

The woman had the bloody cheek to _wink_ at him as he left. _Gryffindors_ , he thought disparagingly. _No sense of subtlety at all_.

Wednesday, 14 April 1993 Slytherin

Mary could hear the common room up ahead. The passages, now, were lit – it must be before curfew, but she had no idea what day it was. The Weasleys must be able to hear it as well, but all of them were too tired and thirsty to say anything. They hauled themselves forward, one step at a time, pulling themselves out of the nightmare they stumbled into. Footsteps approached rapidly, and then an older boy appeared from around a bend. _Sean. Prefect Moon. Thank the Powers._ Mary finally let herself collapse, slipping into unconsciousness as the sixth-year raised the alarm.

Thursday, 15 April 1993 Hospital Wing

There were voices above her as she drifted back to consciousness.

"Sean said she hissed something, and then just fainted. She was covered in ink, and had a pretty bad cut on one arm. The prefects brought them here, and I guess fetched Professors Snape and McGonagall. I only got in to see her a minute before you got here. They kept me out while they did their tests and things."

"And no one's told you anything? No idea where they were? How she's doing? The Weasleys? What were all the Weasleys doing in Slytherin?"

"No, nothing. I mean, obviously they were in the Chamber, but no one's said anything about how they got there, and they've not said anything about how anyone's doing where I can hear. Merlin's arse, I've only been here a minute longer than you!"

A hand grasped one of Mary's and squeezed it gently.

"You're going to be alright, Lizzie," one of the voices whispered in her ear.

"Mai'? Lils?" Mary tried to say, but her tongue felt too thick, as though it wasn't working right.

"Parseltongue." Lilian sounded a bit worried.

Mary managed to pry one eye open, then the other. "Maia? Lils?" she tried again.

"Oh, thank God you're all right!" Hermione let go of her hand, and immediately threw herself on the smaller girl in an awkward, horizontal hug.

Lilian looked incredibly relieved, and pulled Hermione back when she noticed the overwhelmed expression on Mary's face, for which Mary suspected she would always be grateful.

"How long was I out?"

"It's Thursday lunch. You've been missing since Monday, and showed up last night in Slytherin," Lilian said, claiming Mary's other hand. "Sean found you in one of the tunnels with the twins and Ginny Weasley. You were covered in ink and had a nasty cut on one arm." She turned Mary's wrist over, as though to check that the healing had gone well. To everyone's surprise, there was a short, silvery scar on her wrist. "He said you hissed something and then passed out. The prefects brought you here, and brought in Professor Snape and McGonagall. They searched the tunnels all night trying to figure out where you'd been, but no luck."

"'Course not. It's the Chamber of _Secrets_."

"Elizabeth," Hermione said in a cajoling tone, "What happened?"

"It was Ginny," Mary said. "She was being possessed by some diary-memory-thing, and the twins figured it out. One of them came to find me, but she escaped before we got back. We followed her to Myrtle's loo, and the twins fucking _kidnapped_ me. They killed the basilisk with a rooster. A lot of roosters, actually," she smiled weakly, "and then I stabbed the diary with a fang and killed it. But we were stuck. Magic wouldn't work down there for ages. I don't know why. We were just wandering around in the dark forever. I don't know how we got out, but we did, and then our wands worked again, but we were lost in the tunnels, and we were all so thirsty…" She trailed off for a moment before picking up the story again. "Eventually we found one of the markers for a tunnel to the Common Room, and I followed that back. The last thing I remember is seeing your brother, Lils, and thinking, thank the Powers, we're out."

"Oh, Lizzie," Hermione said, clearly torn between relief and horror that her friend had been wandering in the dark for two days.

"It'll be alright, now," Lilian added comfortingly.

"Indeed," an old man's voice concurred from the doorway. Dumbledore stepped forward into the ward, his phoenix swooping gracefully behind him, resplendent with red and gold plumage. It landed on the back of Hermione's abandoned chair. "A most enlightening tale."

"What are you doing here, sir?" Mary asked. Last she knew, he had been sent away from the school.

"Well, my dear, I was worried about you."

"'S not what I meant," she said, trying hard not to roll her eyes at the obviously-reinstated Headmaster.

The man's smile did not reach his eyes. "When the governors got word that four students had gone missing under the school, presumably into the Chamber of Secrets, they… reinstated my position as Headmaster."

Mary nodded. It wasn't as though it would have made a difference. The basilisk was dead and the diary, too, with no help from him. But that, she supposed, was how adults thought – bring back the Headmaster as a symbol, attacks stop, all is well, raise the man ever higher in public esteem… _Oh, he's still talking_ , she thought, pulling herself away from her musings.

"Well, my dear?"

"Sorry, sir, my mind was wandering. I did _just_ wake up."

"I was asking, Mary, if you would consent to recount your story again, in as much detail as you can, while I use legilimency to help you recall anything you might have forgotten."

"No." She shook her head violently, which made her a bit dizzy. "Maia, can you pass me that water?"

Hermione, bless her soul, did. The phoenix trilled when she got too close to it. Mary winced. The sound wasn't helping her Headmaster-induced headache.

"No, Miss Potter? But it could be exceedingly helpful – any information on Voldemort–"

"Riddle."

"Miss Potter?"

"He was like, sixteen. Call him Riddle. Everyone here knows," she added.

"Very well then," the Headmaster's customary twinkle was back. Mary finished her water, closed her eyes, and laid her head back on her pillow. "My girl, this is important."

"I'm still listening," she said. If he wanted to talk to her so badly that he ambushed her in the Hospital Wing, he could deal with the fact that the lights were making her head hurt.

Dumbledore sounded a bit irritated as he continued. "Mary, my dear… Any information on Mr. _Riddle_ that you could provide from this encounter could be the key to his ultimate defeat. Surely you see…"

"Yes, sir. But I thought I made my position clear at Christmas. With all due respect, I don't want you in my head."

"Use of legilimency in circumstances such as these is a longstanding and well-proven technique." Definitely irritated. "And the sooner it is done, the more detail you are likely to recover."

Mary sighed. "Shouldn't you be talking to my guardian about this? I don't have a problem with the legilimency. I have a problem with _you_ , Headmaster. I don't want you, specifically, in my head."

"Miss Potter!" For the first time, Dumbledore sounded outright _angry_ at her. Ah, well, she supposed she had been more tactful at Christmas. But then, she hadn't just watched a basilisk die, killed a teenaged impression of the Dark Lord, spent two days wandering in the dark thinking she was going to die, and woken up in the hospital wing less than an hour before at Christmas.

And then Lilian, angel that she was, offered a compromise. "Professor Snape could do it," she suggested. "He used legilimency on us when he questioned us about the Heir. And you trust him, right Liz?"

"Yeah. Let Professor Snape do it and I'll cooperate," Mary agreed, squinting through her lashes at the Headmaster.

The old man sighed. "Very well. I will send him up this evening after classes have concluded."

"Thank you, sir," Mary said, echoed by her friends.

The old man took his leave, and shortly thereafter, Madam Pomfrey bustled over to deliver Mary's lunch and chase Hermione and Lilian back to class.

Headmaster's Office

Severus Snape was in a well-concealed rage.

He had just come from inspecting Mary Potter's recollection of the previous days' events, and he could not decide which aspect of the affair troubled him the most. He had found traces of compulsions to _trust Tom Riddle_ in her mind. He had discovered several holes in her story and her mind which suggested that her memories were expertly and _voluntarily_ altered. The children had come face-to-face with a basilisk _in the school_. The Weasley twins had blatantly _kidnapped_ one of his Slytherins to go _fight a basilisk_. And of course one mustn't forget that all of this had only come to light in the first place because a group of vigilante students had been questioning every _other_ student in the castle about their involvement using highly controlled substances, which had supposedly been brewed by a second-year and two fourth-years in an undisclosed, unauthorized and _unsupervised_ laboratory somewhere in the castle. He couldn't even imagine where they had gotten the ingredients.

No. That was a lie. He was actually quite certain that the most troubling, _infuriating_ aspect of the whole affair, was that Molly Weasley had interrupted him, demanding to know why he had requested to enter her children's minds.

Not only had he been distracted before he could trace down more details about the brewing of the illegal Veritaserum, the red-headed matriarch had made it clear that, despite the fact that she was well aware of his affiliations and actions at the end of the previous war, she did not trust him as far as she could throw him. If anyone was to go fishing around in the ickle kidnappers' minds, it would be Dumbledore, and hadn't poor little Ginevra suffered enough, without the indignity of reliving her memories of that evil bastard?

He had been forced to deal with the wretched woman – one of his three least favorite Order of the Phoenix members, which was saying a good deal – and while he was doing that, Potter had turned to Minerva crying about how she didn't want to go through it all again either – hadn't he already seen everything he needed to see? So of course Minerva had shut him down when he was finally able to return his attention to the girl. He would not, unfortunately, be able to gain any further knowledge of the Veritaserum situation without performing very, very unethical legilimency on one of his own students. And he liked to think he was better than Dumbledore, so that was out of the question. "Five points to Slytherin," he grumbled, admitting to himself that the chit had outmaneuvered him. He was certain she had done it intentionally.

And of course, now that he had come to make his report to Dumbledore, the Headmaster was out of his office. Severus tossed the diary, the supposed cause of all this mayhem, onto one of Dumbledore's spindly little tables, and threw himself into an armchair, mulling over the events he had observed in the Potter girl's mind.

He had to hand it to whomever had arranged for the Weasley girl's possession: turning a first-year Gryffindor into the Heir of Slytherin was completely unexpected. He knew none of the other Heads of House had attempted to systematically question their students – why would they? Why would the Heir be placed anywhere but _his_ house? Stupid. They should have questioned everyone.

He would, of course, demand the expulsion of the Weasley twins for kidnapping Miss Potter and dragging her into danger. He highly doubted that Dumbledore would agree, as the boys had, unquestionably, managed to kill a basilisk and rescue their sister. That sort of Gryffindor foolishness was the sort of thing the old man was sure to wish to reward. He would probably have to settle for a loss of one-hundred points each, and detentions every day for the remainder of the year.

He wished he could take the old man to task over the fact of the basilisk's existence, or the fact that the ministry had accepted such a half-hearted explanation as an _acromantula_ back in the 1940s, but he could not justify it. He had not put it together himself, and Dumbledore had not been in charge of the school at that time. He knew Dippet had ordered the entire Castle inspected over the summer after the attacks, and they had found no sign of another monster. And then it had lain dormant for over ten years by the time Dumbledore was advanced to the Head position.

Severus sighed, shifting away from that train of thought.

He would also have to try to figure out another way to get at those details of the Veritaserum plot. The Granger girl was out. The Ministry would never authorize an unnecessary and unwanted legilimizing for a ward of the magical state, and _in loco parentis_ was not good enough when your inquiring official was an ex-Death Eater. The Moons, perhaps, would give their permission. It was widely known that they didn't give a bloody fuck what their children got mixed up in. According to his contacts at St. Mungo's, the Moon girls were brought in for minor magical and creature injuries nearly as often as the Weasley children, and always by their older brother. He added owling them about permission to a mental to-do list.

Finally, unable to put it off any longer, Severus turned to the girl's memories of the Chamber, replaying them in his mind. He skimmed over the infuriating circumstances of their entry into the Chamber, skipping to the great ceremonial doors. They had walked through an enormous, ostentatious hall, reminiscent of the Parthenon, but with a statue of Salazar Slytherin at the end instead of Athena. The Weasley girl and the diary had been lying at its feet, while the intangible impression – Severus could not call it a ghost, and it was not precisely a shade – lurked out of sight.

"Who dares to trespass in the Hall of the Great Lord Slytherin?" he had asked. It must have been Parseltongue, because the boys spun around in terror, wands raised, while Mary failed to suppress a laugh.

"Who really talks like that?" she had asked, and the young man had strolled out of the shadows. Severus would have guessed his age around sixteen. He wore an antiquated prefect's badge on his Slytherin robes, and had the swagger Severus associated with post-OWL fifth-years – they who thought themselves adults, without realizing yet how difficult it would be to join in the real world outside of Hogwarts. NEWT students tended to look either more grounded, or more nervous.

This part of the memory was apparently unaltered. Mary's thoughts had flowed around him, taking into account Riddle's looks, the fact that he didn't quite look like a ghost, his manner and the fact that it was not consistent with a pureblood heir.

She did not see that they stood the same way, hid their expressions similarly, unconsciously (or perhaps consciously, on Riddle's part) mirrored each other's gestures as they spoke. Severus would have been willing to bet that they were on similar ground, socially – raised by neglectful muggles, having to study as much as they could of pureblood society from the outside – though of course Minerva had given the girl the advantage there, fostering her with the Urquharts. The two children even looked somewhat alike – more similar than Sean and Lilian Moon. Only their eyes were different. It was even more unnerving than when the girl had reminded him of Bellatrix.

Riddle looked down his nose at Potter. "Little Speaker? You must learn how to properly address your betters." Mary, Severus noted, was slightly impressed by the fact that the boy had managed to make Parseltongue sound mocking, and gathered that it didn't normally. Severus, on the other hand, was impressed by the compulsion Riddle had so carefully slipped in along with his words. It was little more than a suggestion toward open-mindedness. Severus would not have seen it, had he not spent so many years with the Dark Lord, fending off such incursions.

"You are not my better," the girl scowled at him, resisting the suggestion. "And it is rude to speak a language others cannot in their presence."

"Not 'better,' 'senior.'" He emphasized the second word slightly differently, placing himself in a role as a teacher, superior, before changing tactics. "I am older than you, and if you speak the snake-tongue, you are most likely my offspring. I _am_ better than you too, that just goes without saying."

Mary ignored his last statement, amused and baffled by his interpretation of her ability to speak Parseltongue. "I'm not your daughter!" she said, stifling a laugh at the looks the twins gave her. _I_ _couldn't possibly be_ , she thought, quashing a tiny hope that bloomed at the thought of having any living family to speak of with a vicious reminder to herself that _he is the Dark Lord_.

Another hook was set on that hope, and Riddle proceeded to drive it home, calmly and rationally pushing the family angle. "No, I must have been fifty, at least, by the time you were born. You are more likely my granddaughter."

"Do you know who I am?" she asked tentatively.

"Of course I do. You are Mary Potter, the Girl Who Lived." Severus was surprised to feel how much she hated that sobriquet. It did explain her next statement well, though.

Mary scowled. "And you are presumably Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, aka, the Dark Lord Who Died." Severus was almost certain the girl had felt his amusement at that.

"No, I'm not." Riddle appeared to think about this for a moment. "Okay, yes, I am Tom Riddle, and yes, I had plans to be Lord Voldemort, but _I_ never actually did that, and _he's_ not actually dead." That statement was curious. Severus wondered if it was true, that the Riddle before them did not consider himself the same as the Riddle wraith out in the world. A third suggestion, another nudge as they continued to converse amiably, simply to continue to do so. Oh, he was _good_.

"Whatever. He's not actually alive, either. He's like some kind of wraith thing. The point I was going for, there, was that my parents were Lily Evans and James Potter. No Riddles."

"My working theory is that your mother was actually hidden with a muggle family for her protection. It makes sense with the political climate at the time to keep her out of harm's way, and I hear she was formidable on the battlefield – not exactly what you'd expect from a real muggleborn."

Severus had nearly thrown himself out of Mary's mind in surprise at that. He was fairly certain that Lily had been a real muggleborn – as sure as he could be without checking Mr. and Mrs. Evans for memory charms – which was out of the question, since both had died in 1980 – or making Mary undergo a lineage tracing spell. But he did seem to recall the Evanses had moved to Cokeworth not long after Lily was born…

He wrenched his mind away from that train of thought. He did _not_ want to think of his Lily as the Dark Lord's illegitimate daughter… though they did share a penchant for rituals that violated all sane rules of magic… _no._

Mary didn't believe it either, he was relieved to see, though it did help cement the impression of the young Dark Lord as a reasonable person – it made sense, given the evidence she thought he knew. _And evidence neither of them know about,_ Severus thought traitorously. "I lived with her older sister for ten years. Definitely muggles."

The older boy waved away her argument. "Nonsense. Blood will out. I'd bet she was nothing like this muggle 'sister' of hers."

For the most part, that was true. The Evans girls shared their arrogance, and their belief that they were better than upper lower class, and would make it out someday. But Lily bore only a passing resemblance to her parents and sister. She looked much more like the photos of her late aunt Matilde, her mother's sister… could she have? _No._ Severus shoved the thought behind an Occlumency barrier, hiding it from himself.

Thankfully, and Severus had _never_ thought he would be thankful to the Weasley twins, it was at that moment that they were interrupted. "Mary," one of the boys hissed in her ear, "Why are we just standing around?"

"Does he look like he's getting brighter to you?" the other asked, crowding around her other side. Severus was only slightly more comfortable with human contact than Mary, and wished they would back off. Even as a memory, this was awkward.

Mary squinted at the phantom boy in front of her. "You're _stalling_ , you sneaky bastard!" she accused him, sending a stunner in his direction. It passed right through him.

He grinned. Severus cursed him for being such a charming snake. He could see, now, how the young man had gained followers in the early days. "Yes. I suppose I am a bit… transparent… at the moment." Another nudge – humanizing the boy in front of them. _Underestimate me_ , it said, insidiously.

"Sweet" "Bobby" "Robin-" "-son!" "Lord Voldemort," "Just made a pun."

"A really _bad_ pun." Severus silently agreed, and wondered how long it would take for them to realize that he was stalling again.

"I will have you know," the boy said, in a tone faintly reminiscent of Percy, "that puns are the most advanced form of humour. They have a long and honourable history, and –"

"And you're stalling again. What are you waiting for?"

This grin was intimidating, testing. "To become solid enough that I can take the little ginger's wand and kill you all, before I finish sucking the life out of her and continue on my merry way to track down that stupid bastard I grew up to become." Ah, yes, that was the Dark Lord Severus remembered from school – threaten you to your face and make you shiver in your boots, make you beg for his mercy, but long for his attention and a demonstration of his power.

Severus watched, torn between suspense and exasperation as the children tried to leave, and then horror and amusement as the Weasleys slew the basilisk. The sight of the teenaged Dark Lord sprinting around the Chamber of Secrets wandlessly banishing roosters would be, he thought, his new answer to boggarts, and damn the consequences.

He knew what had happened when the beast finally died – the magic stored within it was released, flooding the chamber, muting the effectiveness of wands. That was the first very odd thing about the memory, though this part of it still was not altered: they should have felt such a flood of magic even here, as it leeched out of the Chamber.

Thereafter, the memory became less intense, either because the girl was in shock – which he rather doubted (if it was shock, it would likely have set in as soon as the serpent appeared) – or because everything after had been removed, and her mind coaxed into producing post-hoc memories around an agreed-upon story. It was very well done, but there were traces of compulsions floating free of memories, and the quality-shift to give it away – a rush-job. Most damning, of course, was the solid, permanent block on five minutes just before the children found their way out of the Chamber. It was disguised among the fuzzy, dark, repetitive memories of the tunnels, tied firmly to other memories of darkness, including, it seemed, half the girl's childhood, and he could not unravel it without risking serious harm to her. Moreover, he could not break the final compulsion, seated in the block, to avoid the Chamber of Secrets. He suspected that it had been placed that way intentionally. All of this, of course, suggested that the Dark Lord had not perished, as the false memories suggested, and had managed to attain the children's permission to alter their memories. Why hadn't he just killed them? It would have been much more efficient, and powers below knew, the Weasley twins were irritating enough most days to warrant it. Could he really believe that Mary Potter was his heir?

And, of course, there was the matter of the cut on Mary Elizabeth's wrist. There had been no point in the memories he had seen where such a wound could have occurred, and it had left a scar. Unless he was very much mistaken, it was caused by a particular wandless, wordless, Dark severing charm. He had several similar scars from the old days. They never did heal properly, unless the person who made the wound took it away. What had Riddle wanted with Mary Potter's blood? Was he sending a message, or had he just overlooked the detail?

More precisely, what had he wanted, that seemed harmless enough that the girl would assist him, but carried sufficient stigma or punishment that she had allowed him into her mind to take her memories afterward? The number of compulsions was damning, but even their combined influence would not have been sufficient to push her into anything if he had not acted the part he was pushing her to see. Easy cooperation, yes, they would have gained him that, but it was not as though the girl would have entirely taken leave of her senses.

Severus could think of nothing the boy would have wanted, that could be so easily granted. It might, perhaps, be easier if he knew what the apparition was in the first place. He stared at the destroyed journal, lying so harmless-looking on the table. He performed one diagnostic charm on it, then another. Both registered off the scale for dark magic. The third diagnostic was for residual traces of Black rituals, and it registered at least two instances – one half a century prior, and one only days ago. _Interesting_.

He considered his options for a long moment then threw caution to the winds, calling on the darkest raw power he could muster and pouring it into the book, seeking out the purpose of the rituals in which it had been used. It was a process not unlike legilimency, the scrying of objects, but he found it required far more concentration and power. He was so entirely focused on teasing apart the remnants of magic in the book that he failed to notice the Headmaster's return until that _damnable_ phoenix trilled in his ear.

It took every bit of self-control in his body to not _Avada_ the wretched creature when he noticed Dumbledore's amusement. He settled for chasing it away with the same magic he had used to scry the diary.

"Sadistic bastard," he grumbled, tossing the book onto the Headmaster's desk. "That," he announced, in a much louder voice, "is a horcrux. Or was, I suppose. It's been unmade by the Destructive power, but the traces are clear."

"A horcrux?" the old man asked. Of course he wouldn't know of them. Bloody lily-white Albus would probably kill himself with the Mercy Spell before he would consider creating such a thing. It wasn't even that difficult, theoretically, though apparently it was very painful.

Horcruxes were much like muggle ghost stories, among certain Dark families. A tale to frighten children, that no one in their right mind would attempt, though everyone would swear that their great-grandfather knew a dark wizard who had done it. The Blacks, Lestranges, Rosiers, and Rowles came to mind. And Malfoy, of course.

Lucius Malfoy had told Severus about horcruxes when Severus was a second-year, skulking around the upperclassmen with their air of cool unapproachability. If Malfoy had thought it would scare the boy away, he must have been sorely disappointed. Young Severus had _loved_ Dark Arts, and thought the horcrux was just about the neatest thing he had heard of in all his twelve years. He had told Lily, and she had done an arithmantic breakdown of the ritual for him as a Yule gift during their fifth year, though she had made him swear on his magic to find a power-source other than human sacrifice if he really wanted to use it. He had never pursued it. Still, he would bet that half his NEWT students had heard of the ritual, at home or from their friends.

"Ritual magic. Black. Creates a soul anchor called the horcrux," Severus pointed at the book, "which can later be used to revive the animus after the body has been killed. Risky, painful, one of the cruder and more effective ways to reach pseudo-immortality." The old man blanched. Severus couldn't help but smirk at him. "The process involves splitting the soul in half via invocation of the Destructive Power, tying one half to an object via invocation of the Binding Power, and investing the object-bound soul with a part of one's magic, in order to allow it to possess anyone who comes across it and siphon their magic to construct a replacement body. This one," he nodded at the book again, "did not function as intended. They are meant to remain inert until they have drawn in the remainder of the individual's soul or anima, magic, and life-spark or animus after the body has died. If that had happened in this case, I daresay the projection would have been of a sixty-year-old madman, not a charming sixteen-year-old boy."

"Why did it not work?"

"Perhaps I can tell you when I've had more than ten minutes to think it over and don't have a phoenix-induced migraine," Severus said scathingly.

The Headmaster sighed, looking, for once, as old as Severus often felt. "Mary Potter flinched at Fawkes' song today."

"You are certain it had nothing to do with dealing with _you_ not half an hour after she woke up from her ordeal?"

"Positive, Severus." There was an edge to Dumbledore's tone which added an unspoken 'don't push me.'

He sighed. It was hardly _his_ fault the girl was not the paragon of virtue Dumbledore wanted. Lily's daughter _(Riddle's granddaughter?)_ never could have been. "Well, that may go some distance toward explaining the cut on her wrist and the _second_ ritual performed on the book. Though how she would have known that ritual and what she was dealing with, or why she would have stabbed it with a basilisk fang after all was said and done, I have no idea. I shall have to give the issue more thought."

"And the girl's memories?" Dumbledore was quite adept at skimming memories for information, a competent legilimens and occlumens both. He could tell when someone was lying to him or read surface thoughts unnoticed, and he had the power and control to perform legilimency silently, but he had nothing on Severus when it came to interrogation and the mental arts, or properly delving into memory. In fact, Severus rather doubted he had spotted the embedded compulsions at all, given that he had little personal interaction with post-Hogwarts Riddle, and he probably hadn't realized that half the memories were false.

"Clear, accurate, and untouched until the death of the basilisk. Presumably the Weasleys' were the same. Everything after that is a story-based substitution. The true memories have been entirely removed, and are therefore non-recoverable. There were traces of compulsions lingering – mostly harmless, even in the aggregate, pushing for cooperation. Whatever he wanted from her, I would suspect he got it. I disarmed them, though I suspect most of them would have faded soon enough on their own, given that the memories they were tethered to were removed. Then there is a brief block which I cannot unravel without causing severe damage to her mind – likely the period of time wherein the modifications took place, with a compulsion to avoid the Chamber. That I left intact. From the point that they find their way out of the tunnels, the memories are originals again."

"And these modifications, they were done by force?" the old man sounded almost hopeful.

Severus took a small bit of pleasure in shaking his head slowly. " _Story-based_ substitution," he repeated. "She helped coordinate her memories with the others. It was voluntary." He relented, then, adding, "Though arguably her choices could have been influenced by the compulsions," which caused the Headmaster to perk up.

"Then there is still hope," he remarked. Severus rolled his eyes, and the thrice-cursed bird trilled again. He winced and sent a tiny ball of hoarfrost at it. It vanished in a flare of fire.

"I hate that bird," he grumbled, and Dumbledore gave him a terribly pitying look. In his world, no one should hate a phoenix.

"I suppose that is all for the moment, my dear boy," Dumbledore said softly, apparently accommodating his headache.

Severus almost found himself agreeing before he recalled the events _leading_ to the Chamber, and resettled himself in his seat. "I'm afraid not, Albus."

"No?" Dumbledore raised a white eyebrow.

"No. As the Head of Slytherin House, I must demand the expulsion of the Weasley twins on behalf of one of the students of my House, who was kidnapped and dragged into danger by those Gryffindor hooligans."

"No." Dumbledore's pronouncement had an air of finality about it. "They destroyed a basilisk and put an end to the Heir of Slytherin's reign of terror. They will not be expelled for their actions."

Severus narrowed his eyes. So far, as expected. "Then they will serve detention with me every night from now until they graduate. There is no excuse. The girl was on her way out the door to find qualified assistance, and they disarmed her from behind."

"Severus… I know you feel strongly about Lily's child…"

"It's not because she's Lily's daughter, you old goat! I would do as much for any of my students! She was disarmed, forcibly restrained, silenced when she attempted to close the passageway, then dropped down a pipe from which there was no egress, still silenced and restrained, so that she could _open doors_ for them. Doors which I at least would have been fully capable of opening! There was no reason for the child to be placed in that situation _._ "

"You speak Parseltongue?"

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. "One cannot spend any length of time around Bellatrix and the Dark Lord without learning _some_ Parseltongue. I know the word 'open.' It's not even that difficult to pronounce, though I have it on good authority that my accent is terrible."

Dumbledore's eyes grew wide. " _Bellatrix Lestrange_ speaks Parseltongue?"

 _Of course that's the part of all this he chooses to focus on._ "Of course she does. She also knows High Mermish, Siren and Gobbledygook, two different dialects of House Elf, three of Giant, whatever the hell Dementors speak, and Welsh." The old goat looked rather taken aback by this. "That's _not_ important!" Severus snapped. "Those hellions _will_ be punished for kidnapping Miss Potter."

"You cannot assign them three _years_ of detention, Severus. Be reasonable."

"Every day until the end of the year then. And one hundred points from Gryffindor. Each." He glared at the Headmaster, who glared back.

"Fine."

"Fine. That leaves us only with their punishment, and that of Miss Granger, for brewing an illegal batch of Veritaserum."

Dumbledore looked amused at this. "Do you really think that the children managed such a feat?"

"Miss Potter seemed well and truly convinced. She herself dosed at least six different Hufflepuffs, along with several other Slytherins, all of whom will also be punished. The Weasleys were obviously in on it, and I would bet my right arm that the elder Miss Moon was involved as well."

Dumbledore was chortling now.

"What? Why are you laughing? This is a serious matter, Albus. Improperly brewed Veritaserum can have fatal effects, and their plan appears to have been to dose _every non-Slytherin student_ in the Castle."

"It was a ruse, dear boy!"

"Explain," Severus spat.

"I came across a memory in young Fred Weasley's mind, while I was inspecting the circumstances under which they discovered Tom's presence. He tried to hide it, but I managed to winkle it out. The Twins and Miss Granger were considering brewing the potion. They were working out the logistics of acquiring some of the more dangerous and controlled ingredients, and had reached an impasse. And then Miss Granger had the idea to simply give their co-conspirators water, or, even better, a highly concentrated Suggestivity Solution, and _tell_ them it was Veritaserum. They would, perhaps, enlist each of the others in fetching one or two Veritaserum ingredients to add verisimilitude to the charade, ensuring that they could pass on to those they questioned their certainty that the potion would force them to tell the truth. She called it, oh, it was a muggle thing…"

"A placebo?"

"Yes! Apparently muggle doctors use it all the time, tricking their patients into getting better."

"Hmmm…" Severus turned this idea over in his mind. It was certainly more reasonable to assume that the Weasleys had brewed an OWL-standard Suggestivity Solution, or even the NEWT-standard concentrated variation, than that they had managed the exceedingly tricky and exacting Veritaserum. Quite aside from the brewing, Veritaserum required both unicorn and thestral blood, a skein of _stolen_ demiguise silk, and three powdered drams by weight of bone from a miscarried human fetus. Even he didn't keep powdered miscarry-bone in stock, and he _certainly_ hadn't misplaced any demiguise silk lately. Suggestivity Solution did not call for anything they could not have acquired at Pasterel's in Hogsmeade. In that case, the plan was ingenious, and worthy of a Slytherin, though he would still have to punish all of the co-conspirators who _thought_ they were using Veritaserum on their victims, and did it anyway. "Very well. Five points to Ravenclaw," he ground out. Twice in one day – these second-year girls were going to be the death of him.

Albus just smiled knowingly. _Bastard_. "If that is all, my boy?"

"Yes, yes. Goodnight, Albus."

"Goodnight, Severus."

Severus swept down the Headmaster's spiral stair, thinking that _good_ was not an adjective he would have chosen to associate with the night's discussion. Between wondering what he had done with that copy of the Horcrux ritual Lily had annotated and whether he could convince Mary Elizabeth to take a lineage-revealing potion and _not_ tell the Headmaster about it, he doubted he would get any sleep at all.


	21. Debriefing

**[A/N: Chapter 15 Part 2]**

* * *

Saturday, 17 April 1993 Severus Snape's Office

"He's going to bloody kill us," one of the Weasley twins said, fidgeting as he waited for Professor Snape to call them into his office.

"If not for the conspiracy, then, well, you know…"

"Kidnapping me?" Mary asked as drily as she could manage. She had been ignoring the twins since they were released from the Hospital wing, but she was willing to make an exception if it made them feel more guilty about their actions in Moaning Myrtle's loo.

"Yes." "That." "We're dead." "So dead."

"Stop saying that," Ginny said with a tiny shudder.

Hermione, who was arguably an enormous softie, put an arm around the redheaded girl. Lilian, who had not forgiven the youngest Weasley for her role in recent events quite yet – specifically _not telling anyone_ when she finally got away from the diary in January – glared at her friend for this blatant betrayal.

"Hey," Mary said, "Aren't you supposed to be _my_ moral support?"

"Shut up, Lizzie," Hermione advised. Lilian smirked at the Ravenclaw. Mary rolled her eyes at the other Slytherin just as the door opened.

Professor Snape took in the scene before him – guilty, worried twins; scared Ginny and supportive Hermione; and the three girls in the midst of a minor power play – and smiled. It was deeply disturbing.

"Miss Potter. Miss Moon. Miss Granger. Miss Weasley. Messers Weasley. Come in," he commanded them. The students filed through the door, directed to a pair of sofas he had arranged in place of the usual visitors' chairs. He himself had an armchair in place of his desk. Mary wondered what he had done with the desk, which, as she recalled, was generally covered in clutter. Surely he hadn't tidied, just for their meeting.

"Sit." The Weasleys took one sofa, the boys flanking their sister, while Hermione and Lilian took up positions on either side of Mary.

The professor did not sit, instead turning his chair around and leaning against the back of it.

"First things first," he said smoothly. "Mister Weasley. Mister Weasley. One hundred points from Gryffindor for kidnapping a Slytherin student and forcing her into a dangerous situation. Each. You will also report here for detention every night until the end of term beginning this Monday."

"Yes, sir," the boys chorused, looking relieved that their punishment had not been far more severe.

"Secondly, Miss Granger, Messers Weasley, I believe you have something to say to your compatriots regarding the brewing of the so-called Veritaserum?" The three looked at each other in confusion. "Or was Headmaster Dumbledore mistaken when he informed me that you had, in fact, relied on the placebo effect in order to question your peers?"

All three of the potioneers in question looked confused. Then understanding dawned on Hermione's face. Professor Snape's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Erm, no, sir. That's correct. We, that is, the boys and I – we realized there was no way we would ever manage to get all the supplies for Veritaserum, so we made a concentrated version of the Suggestibility Solution, and charmed all the vials so that it would appear colorless. We lied to you so that you wouldn't be able to give it away. Sorry."

"So you mean we _weren't_ using Veritaserum on everyone?" Lilian asked.

"No," the twins said, again together, without elaborating.

"Oh, that's good," Lilian said. She also sounded relieved. Mary didn't know why. She would bet anything they were still going to be punished, since they hadn't known that when they had done it.

Sure enough, the next words out of Professor Snape's mouth were, "Miss Potter, Miss Moon, Miss Yaxley, Mr. Lestrange, Mr. Wilkes, the elder Miss Moon, and Miss Lovegood along with Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Weasley will each serve one hour of detention for each student they dosed with what they believed to be Veritaserum or claimed to be Veritaserum. Your comrades have already been informed. Be glad your duplicity was discovered, Messers Weasley, Miss Granger. The punishment for illegally brewing that particular potion is a mandatory year in Azkaban, and a month for using it on anyone outside of a courtroom setting, and you may be assured that your youth would only defer your punishment to a later date." Mary felt the blood rush from her own face as she watched the Weasley twins go pale across from her. Professor Snape continued blandly. "Even without the Veritaserum aspect, you have assaulted three quarters of the student body, which, despite the Headmaster's _laissez faire_ , no harm, no foul attitudes, is a crime I will _not_ dismiss lightly."

"Yes, sir," she heard Hermione squeak.

"I'm glad we understand each other." Professor Snape smiled again, looking directly at Hermione. The expression did not reach his eyes, and Mary had the impression there was more communication there than she was aware. Hermione looked down, and sank further back into the couch cushions. "These detentions will be held every Saturday beginning with the first Saturday of next term." Mary did not even consider raising a Quidditch-based objection. If she had a conflict, Draco would just have to be seeker.

"Yes, sir," she said quietly, hanging her head, and was echoed a moment later by the Weasley twins and Lilian. She wasn't looking forward to Morgana's reaction, but a hundred hours of detention was _much_ better than a hundred months in Azkaban.

"Good," the professor declared. "You will speak of this to no one. Understood?"

There was a chorus of affirmative responses from the five students implicated. It would be better if the whole school didn't know what they had done, anyway.

"Good." With that the professor spun his chair around again and finally sat, his demeanor shifting at once from the Professor Snape they knew from class to the Professor Snape Mary recalled from their discussions after the Quirrellmort incident. "Tavi!" he called, and an elf appeared. "Tea for seven," he ordered. The students looked at each other in confusion, as the professor apparently enjoyed their reaction. When the tea arrived, Lilian poured, as though she were at a formal party, and passed out the cups with a careful Levitation Charm.

Once they were all settled at the strangest tea party ever, the professor announced, "I have asked you all here today to discuss the events which occurred within the Chamber of Secrets, and leading up to said events. Miss Weasley, Miss Potter, if at any time you wish the other students to leave, you may ask, and we will comply. Should such a request be made, the rest of you will go wait in the hall until I command you to return." Seeing the looks on the twins' faces, he added, "You idiots were the cause of trauma, not the ones who suffered it, here." They subsided without a word. "We will begin with Miss Weasley."

Ginny got off to a stuttering start, and made her way slowly through a tear-filled tale. It soon became clear that she had no memory of most of the attacks, and had been more or less in love with the boy in the diary, before he betrayed her and took over her body. She had been suffering in silence since the beginning of the year as her life fell further and further out of her control.

"And t-the Headmaster, he s-said he c-couldn't remove the b-blocks, so I'll – I'll n-never know what I did – what he m-made me do," she concluded, finally.

The Professor sighed. "Miss Weasley, would you like me to have a look and remove the blocks where possible?"

"B-But my mum said you c-couldn't."

"Your mother is exceedingly distrustful toward me due to a very poor decision I made as a teenager, and for which I have been atoning these past thirteen years. I am, if I do say so myself, somewhat more proficient than the Headmaster at mental manipulation. If the blocks can be removed, I can remove them. It is possible that they have been tied too deeply into your memories to shift, but I could at least tell you if that is the case. If you do not want my in your head, by all means go to St. Mungo's. Their mind healers could do it just as well."

Ginny gave another sniffle. "Yes. Please. I want to know. I want to know what he did to me. And what I did to – to Colin and Percy."

"Come here, then," the professor said, almost gently, and waved her into his chair. He knelt on the floor in front of her, their eyes nearly level. " _Legilimens_ ," he whispered. They sat there, eyes locked together for five minutes, then ten. As they neared the fifteen-minute mark, the professor broke away. His face was as impassive as ever, though tears were streaming down Ginny's cheeks.

"What did you do to her?" one of her brothers demanded, as the other spoke to their sister in soothing tones.

"Nothing, Mr. Weasley. She is remembering all the little things Riddle hid from her over the course of the year. Many of them are… unpleasant."

"Is there," Hermione said gently, "Is there anything we can do, Ginny?"

"No. You don't un-under-s-stand. How c-could you?"

"Is there a way we could share Ginny's memories, professor?" the Ravenclaw asked immediately.

Professor Snape considered this for a moment before saying, very slowly, "Yes."

"Do you want us to know, Ginny?" Hermione offered.

The younger girl shook her head violently. "It's to h-horrible. I could-couldn't ask you."

"If you want someone to know, someone should know." Hermione's voice was terribly soft.

Mary didn't think Ginny could hear her at all, so she was surprised when the redhead said, "Okay. I-If you're s-sure."

Professor Snape mumbled something under his breath which sounded to Mary like "Save us all from curious Ravenclaws," before explaining that he could use a spell called the Inception Charm to copy memories directly from Ginny's mind to Hermione's. It was bound to be uncomfortable, not only due to the nature of the memories, but because Hermione would essentially live through the entire year again, as Ginny, in her head, albeit at a vastly accelerated pace. It was, he said drily, not entirely unlike the Yule ritual they had all attended.

"I'll do it," the Ravenclaw said firmly. Ginny nodded again.

Professor Snape narrowed his eyes at the two, but complied, performing the spell. He instructed the girls to look directly into each other's eyes, and whispered the incantation quietly enough that Mary couldn't hear it. A thick beam of whitish blue _something_ leapt from Ginny to Hermione. The transfer lasted only seconds, but it was nearly twenty minutes before Hermione could move again. The professor raised an eyebrow as though surprised she had recovered so quickly. While they waited, the others discussed inconsequential things, as though this were any other tea party. It was exceedingly awkward.

"Oh, Ginny," Hermione finally said, clearly on the verge of tears, and pulled the younger girl into a long hug, whispering something in her ear. Whatever she said, it must have helped, because Ginny finally stopped crying and settled back on her couch between her brothers, gratitude shining in her eyes. Hermione rejoined Mary and Lilian, though she sent frequent looks of concern at the young Gryffindor.

Lilian was then called upon to explain the activities of the Conspiracy over the course of the term, which she did surprisingly succinctly, and Mary was asked to recount what she recalled from the Chamber of Secrets itself. The Professor halted Mary's story just after the Basilisk died.

"For the benefit of those who were not in the Hospital Wing on Thursday evening," he said (only Hermione and Lilian), "Everything after this point is a fabrication. Continue." All of the Weasleys looked surprised by this, as though the Headmaster hadn't told them when he looked through their minds.

And so Mary recounted the rest of her memories of those two hideous days in the dark under the school, which apparently hadn't happened. The Weasleys all nodded along. They clearly had similar recollections.

After that, the professor ordered his elf to fetch their dinners, and explained while they ate (or tried to eat, in most cases), exactly what a _horcrux_ was, what they were supposed to do, and how this one had apparently deviated from its intended purpose. Apparently it was this which had saved the Dark Lord from dying when he blew himself up. The professor swore the six students to secrecy, then shared his theory that the Dark Lord had created multiple horcruxes, not only improving his claim on immortality, but allowing his horcruxes and his wraith-form a degree of independence from each other which was not supposed to exist. If Mary understood correctly, a horcrux was like an anchor that towed in the other half of its soul after death. By making at least two, the Dark Lord had avoided being pulled back to either of them, and was able to remain a wraith. Why he should _want_ to remain a wraith was unclear to the twins, but as Mary, Hermione, and Professor Snape pointed out at once, a wraith was a bit more mobile than a diary, and clearly as able to possess someone.

After an awkward silence, during which Mary was sure everyone was judging her for thinking like the Dark Lord, one of the twins asked how they knew a wraith could possess someone, which necessitated a lengthy tangent about Quirrellmort. Eventually they managed to get back on track with the current year's misadventures, however, and the professor continued, laying out his suspicions that the Dark Lord's Horcrux had been destroyed as a horcrux, but that the soul fragment had somehow survived.

His theory was tenuous, and based on four facts. First, all four students who had been in the Chamber had had their memories altered voluntarily, which suggested it was in their best interests to do so. Second, Mary had reacted poorly to 'that thrice-cursed bird of Dumbledore's' which suggested she had been involved in far more dark magic than she could recall. Third, she had shown up with a cut that Madam Pomfrey could not heal, which could be interpreted in a number of different ways, but at a minimum suggested the Dark Lord had used her blood for something. Finally, the fact that the diary had been destroyed _twice_ , the second time in order to maintain consistency with their altered memories, suggested that the entity which had once inhabited it no longer needed it, and had also survived to alter their memories.

Worst case scenario, there was a young Dark Lord running around loose somewhere with Mary's blood, some kind of body, and all of their memories of exactly what had happened. Both Mary and Ginny cringed at this realization. The only good thing Mary could draw from Professor Snape's summary of events was that wraith-Voldemort was now down one horcrux. She sincerely hoped that he hadn't had more than one other, and was now trapped in another book somewhere, but she suspected that might be too good to be true. She wished she knew why he had let them go. That had to be the strangest thing out of the whole messy affair. Everything she had heard suggested he was the sort of man who would think nothing of killing the four of them and leaving them in the Chamber. Why go to the trouble of making them forget him? Weren't they loose ends?

It was a very unsettling afternoon, and that was before Mary was asked to stay behind as the others filed out.

"Yes, professor?" she asked, nervously, uncertain what more they might possibly have to discuss.

"Have a seat, Miss Potter," he said, sounding very tired and resuming his own.

Mary sat on the very edge of one of the couches. "What is it, sir?" she asked, now genuinely concerned.

The professor approached the subject delicately. "It's about, well, your mother. And the Dark Lord's insinuations regarding her parentage."

"Oh." Mary wasn't sure what she had expected, but that certainly wasn't it.

"I… knew your mother very well, once upon a time, you know."

Mary nodded. Remus had told her as much, ages ago, and she seemed to recall something like that from the end of the previous year, though she didn't remember any details of their friendship, and it had never seemed the right time to ask the standoffish professor. "Sir, I don't understand." Specifically, she didn't know what that had to do with Riddle's claim on her mother's parentage.

"I also knew the Dark Lord, as well as anyone could."

"Yes?"

"I..." He was pinching the bridge of his nose again, clearly unable to say what he thought needed to be said.

Mary decided to put him out of his misery. "Are you trying to say he might have been right?" She tried hard to keep the outrage from her voice, but she wasn't sure if she managed it.

"Before she scrambled his brain, he wasn't often wrong," the man said sardonically.

"So…"

"In hindsight there are certain similarities between the two of them. And you are more like them than you know." Mary quirked an eyebrow at this, and he added, "In a good way."

Mary snorted. She didn't think he had meant to imply that there was anything good about the Dark Lord, but she was fairly certain he had.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't give me that. He was very pragmatic, charming. You met him."

"Yes, and I liked him even though I didn't think I should, and apparently he got me to trust him enough to help him with something that was worth not killing me, and I agreed to let him take my memories of whatever it was."

The professor waved a negligent hand. "A Black Arts destruction ritual, at the very least. Probably more. Speculation will get us nowhere."

"But you think I'm like him?"

"In some ways." He fixed her with a piercing stare. "I could see it in your memory. You stand the same. Your face is the same when you're trying not to admit to knowing more than you should. And you have the same Slytherin pragmatic streak, and a selfish disregard for rules and convention. He and Lily both had that. They also shared a penchant for dangerous ritual magic, though I did not see it at the time. And the charm, the charisma of teenage Riddle was much the same as teenage Lily – mercurial and calculating all at once. She was, of course, much kinder than he, and whatever he once was, he is no longer, but, yes… there are similarities."

"Those could be coincidence," Mary objected. "I mean, he could have copied me on purpose, and the rest of that – they could be coincidences. I mean, pragmatism and a disregard for rules? That's like, all of Slytherin House, and most of Ravenclaw too. Hermione is _way_ worse about that than I am."

The professor snorted at that. "You may tell Miss Granger that I chose not to look too closely at that whole Veritaserum situation, and that I will be watching her much more closely from now on. If she poisons anyone who did not explicitly volunteer to participate in her extra-curricular studies, she will be out of this school before she can apologize."

"Wait – does that mean we really _did_ use Veritaserum on all those people?"

The potions-master smirked. "The headmaster has informed me that I need not look into this case any further and I have every intention of following that advice. Incidentally, you may also tell Miss Granger that random acts of kindness toward Miss Weasley do not constitute atonement for her actions this year, and should she wish to appear more innocent in the future, she would do well not to look so damn guilty and jump on the first available opportunity to assuage said guilt. Though aside from that, her ability to dissemble is coming along quite well."

It took a moment for Mary to parse out that statement. "So she's getting better at lying? But she acts too guilty? And she's not forgiven for… whatever she, or we, might have done, just because she's being nice to Ginny?"

The professor nodded.

She gave up on figuring out that particular conversational detour. "Yes, sir. I'll pass the message along." She would have to ask Hermione what was going on. If she had risked her life with a unicorn and a thestral for nothing, she was going to be _very_ upset.

"See that you do. And while you're at it, you may remind Messers Weasley and Weasley that the accepted strategy to dispose of a class five, highly dangerous magical creature on Hogwarts' grounds, is to report it to a teacher, not to kidnap a Slytherin and then transfigure numerous roosters in the hopes that one of them will crow before it manages to kill you."

"Or sneak it off the top of the tallest tower?"

"If you had managed to sneak a basilisk off the Astronomy tower, I would be very impressed. At least dragons _fly_."

"This conversation has gotten weird."

Professor Snape sighed. "Hogwarts was much less weird before you arrived," he informed her. "It used to just be laughably incompetent DADA instructors and the occasional verbal tussle with Sinistra. Now we've had two different incarnations of the Dark Lord here in two years, and a dragon and a basilisk, not to mention that idiotic obstacle course, and Powers know what else you lot have managed to cover up so far."

"I, erm, think you know everything, sir. That's all I can think of, anyway."

"You should have been a Gryffindor," he responded.

"What? Why?" Mary was highly offended.

"You attract too much trouble for Slytherin."

Mary crossed her arms and slouched on her sofa. "I'm _not_ a Gryffindor."

"Ah, but are you a Slytherin?"

"Of course I am!" she said, before his meaning sunk in. "Oh, wait, you mean…"

The professor smirked at her. "There are ways to find out, you know. Potions, spells. The goblins will do it for a fee."

"Do you think I should?"

The man hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Knowing one way or the other is generally better than suspecting, but not knowing."

"You said there're potions. Could you…?" Mary let the question trail off.

He nodded again. "It will take a month, but it's the most accurate way, for blood ancestry. Magical inheritance is trickier, but the goblins will do that when you come of age. I'll let you know when it's ready. Before the end of the term."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome, Mary Elizabeth."

And with that, Mary excused herself and returned to her room, uncertain about a great many things, but pleased that Professor Snape seemed to be on her side.


	22. Moving Right Along

**Chapter 16: Moving Right Along**

[In which Snape is uncharacteristically loquacious. Also, there theoretically is a universe where Hermione does not turn herself into a cat-person... but it's not this one.]

Friday, 21 May 1993 Potions Master's Office

Mary found it amazing how quickly everything at Hogwarts went back to normal after the basilisk was killed. She supposed in hindsight that she ought to have expected it – the students had been lulled into a false sense of security between each of the attacks, so it only made sense that they would be quick to accept the widely publicized (but never officially endorsed) account, which held the Weasley twins responsible for killing the creature and restoring the safety of the school.

The Headmaster made an announcement at dinner the day after Mary and the Weasleys were released from the Hospital wing, declaring Hogwarts safe again. Professor Snape had held a House Meeting for Slytherin that same night where he informed them officially that the danger of the so-called Heir of Slytherin had passed. This declaration was received with substantially more credulity than Dumbledore's – Unlike the once and future Headmaster, Professor Snape had never been one to 'pander to their juvenile sensitivities,' so there was no chance that he would give them false assurances. He also advised the House that Mary had been given permission to set snakes on them if they badgered her for more information on the Chamber of Secrets, the Heir of Slytherin, or anything that had happened over Easter break. She was privately warned that if she _actually_ set a snake (even a conjured and therefore non-venomous snake, like the one Draco had produced at the Dueling Club) on any of her housemates, or for that matter, on any other student, she would be in detention until she graduated. The implied threat seemed to work regardless, as not a single Slytherin approached her for her side of the story.

The boys were hailed as heroes for nearly three weeks (despite having lost Gryffindor 200 house points), but after the petrified victims were revived, Justin Finch-Fletchley publicly declared that Ginny Weasley had been responsible for the attacks. Their family's popularity dropped precipitously. Ginny herself was a nervous wreck before Justin's announcement, but strangely enough, seemed to have shored up a bit after it. Hermione, who had ostensibly been spending more time with the young redhead of late, said that she had been worried about whether the petrifications would be reversed successfully, and had known it was only a matter of time until the word got out that she was to blame. It was a relief, in a way, that it had finally happened, and a much greater one that Finch-Fletchley was able to accuse anyone of anything at all. Percy had forgiven her, which was all she cared about.

Three days after the victims were released from the hospital wing, it leaked out that Ginny was possessed, and not actually responsible for anything she had done over the course of the year. Mary suspected the hot-tempered Ron was to blame. Unfortunately, rather than reducing the apparent tensions in Gryffindor tower, this information made the young Lions act as though the girl was contaminated by Evil, and they shunned her more thoroughly than the Hufflepuffs had Mary. It probably would have been worse, but the twins made it clear that anyone who messed with their baby sister would be punished threefold for their transgressions. Either at the twins' behest, or due to the memories of the past year that she now shared with Ginny, Hermione had taken the younger girl under her wing, and dragged her into their little Slytherclaw group. The younger girl was pathetically grateful to have friends, which was somewhat off-putting, but neither Mary nor Lilian had the heart to begrudge her their company.

Mary, for her part, managed to keep her name out of it as much as possible. Everyone knew, of course, that she had disappeared and reappeared with the Weasleys, but she refused to tell any of the curious, inquiring students anything about what had happened in the Chamber. She did, of course, make an official report to Professor McGonagall, the Ministry official who wanted verification that the basilisk was dead, and Headmaster Dumbledore (in a meeting that took place much more appropriately, in the Headmaster's office, rather than what she was quickly coming to think of as _her_ hospital bed). The ministry official had sent her a discrete owl afterward asking whether she wanted to press charges on the Weasleys for kidnapping her. Having had a month to cool off (and with the impression that they must have done _something_ to redeem themselves in the Chamber, even if she couldn't remember what, because she certainly wasn't as angry with them as she expected to be), she politely declined. She wasn't speaking to them, no longer considered them friends, and didn't trust them as far as she could throw them without magic, but she wasn't spiteful enough to take them to court and deal with the increase in her own publicity.

There was a final meeting of the Veritaserum Conspiracy, where the twins and Mary filled Morgana, Perry, and Adrian in on exactly what had happened, or at least what they remembered. The older Slytherins were moderately amused that Dumbledore seemed to be inadvertently covering for them, and were, if not happy, at least not too angry about the punishment Professor Snape had decreed. They did, however, decide that they would rather not be affiliated with the rest of the troublemakers in the future.

"No offence, Potter," Adrian had said with a friendly smirk, "But we don't really _do_ life-or-death."

"Yeah," Perry had added quickly, "It's not that we don't like you, it's just that, well…" He trailed off uncomfortably, throwing a look to his leader for support.

"We don't want to be in detention until we graduate," the girl in question had finished. "This was a special case, since it affected all of Slytherin, and we'll follow through on Lockhart because we stand by our word, and he's a git, but from now on, leave us out of your shenanigans."

Mary had readily agreed, relieved that they weren't going to make her life in Slytherin a living hell, and Hermione had changed the subject with a quick, "I almost forgot! Speaking of Lockhart…" and handed over a vial of something that may or may not have been a modified version of Veritaserum. At this point, Mary thought it best to just _not ask_. After Professor Snape turned a blind eye to further investigation of their misdeeds over the past year, Hermione had explained to the rest of the younger students the concept of _plausible deniability_. They had agreed that it would be better if she and the twins never confirmed or denied whether they had been using Veritaserum all term, though Mary was at least 75% certain that they had. She was almost sure that faking the test of the potion would have been more difficult than just making it in the first place. But she held her tongue.

Life for the students outside of the Conspirators and Ginny Weasley, however, reverted to normality startlingly quickly. Slytherin flew their Quidditch match against Ravenclaw in a spring shower (Mary caught the snitch, and they won by fifty points). The second-years returned to their regularly-scheduled DADA lessons (where they were set to copying Lockhart's books by hand as their punishment for skiving off for a month, and continued to learn nothing). Dumbledore managed to get Lucius Malfoy removed from the Board of Governors for threatening the other members in order to get him removed as Headmaster in the first place (Draco was incredibly angry about this turn of events). And of course, the denizens of the Castle settled into studiousness as the end-of-year exams loomed nearer. Within a month, most of the students were acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened all year.

}{-}{-}{-}{-}{

Four and a half weeks after Easter break and the events of the Chamber, Professor Snape asked Mary to stay behind after a Potions lesson. Lilian lingered as well, but was dismissed with a raised eyebrow and a sarcastic, "Is your name Miss Potter? _No_? I _thought_ not. Be gone with you. Miss Potter, with me."

It was about this time that Mary began to get very nervous. There was only one thing she could think that Professor Snape might want to talk to her about in private, and she had been studiously avoiding thinking about it for weeks.

The professor led the way through what Mary had always thought was a storage cupboard, but was apparently a concealed doorway to a private potions lab. The room on the other side of the false cupboard was surprisingly spacious, with only one piece of furniture: a stone bench which would be, for the tall Potions Master, the proper height for ingredient preparation and brewing. On the bench, there were two cauldrons bubbling over open flames, an empty goblet, and a clean sheet of parchment.

Professor Snape conjured a pair of armchairs before carefully ladling out a portion of one of the potions – blue-green with a smell like fresh-cut grass – and handing it to Mary. Another flick of his wand started a timer.

"Let that cool for five minutes, then drink it as quickly as possible," he said, settling into one of the chairs. "As you have no doubt surmised," he continued quietly, "this is the ancestry revealing potion we discussed. There are several which might have been amenable to our purposes, but this one, Laslow's Recombination Revelation, is the most accurate. It is used in verifying the status of new pureblood families. The subject drinks the second part, waits twenty minutes for the second part to be absorbed into the bloodstream, then adds three drops of their potion-laced blood to the third part. This steeps for three minutes, and is then poured onto a parchment brushed with the first part, which I have already prepared. The third part will then coalesce into the names of every magical ancestor of the subject's blood for the three preceding generations – parents, grand-parents, great-grand-parents, first for the father, then for the mother."

Half an hour? Mary thought she would die of suspense. "How does that work, sir?" she asked anxiously, trying to take her mind off the timer ticking upward: Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

The professor looked as though he was considering not answering, but he seemed to suspect her reason for asking, because he said, "You won't understand, even if I explain it," rather than denying her and killing the conversation outright.

"Could you, um… try anyway, sir?"

He turned flat, dark eyes on her, and allowed the briefest flicker of understanding, and perhaps pity, to play across his features. "The concept of fundamental object identity is a NEWT-level topic in magical theory, applying it to humans and other sapient creatures is even more advanced, and that doesn't even begin to touch on the manipulation of magical energies through the potion to produce the desired effect. But yes, I can try." He considered how to begin for what seemed like a very long time, but was really only half a minute, according to the timer. "It has to do with the fact that your magic is tied to your blood as a symbol of your life force or essence or _self_. You know about free magic, as a conceptual entity?"

"Is that the birthday ritual magic?" Mary asked.

Apparently it was, because Professor Snape nodded. "The Powers are… aspects of that free magic, shaped by human will and expectation. Drink your potion."

"What?" Mary's eyes snapped to the glowing red numerals, the hovering display showing four minutes and fifty-seven seconds. "Oh!" She tipped the glass back and swallowed the draught so quickly she hardly tasted it. It was probably for the best. Potions _never_ tasted good. This one was slimy, like an uncooked egg, and left a sour flavor in the back of her throat.

The professor reset the timer and continued his explanation. "Magic, free magic, ties us together as a people, wizard-kind. When we are introduced to magic, or celebrate the Old Ways and the Powers, we allow free magic to become familiar with our own magic. According to Kartoffle, whose theories are among the least inconsistent of the modern Western magical philosophers, free magic _registers_ the magic of individuals, their magical signature, which is, of course, an aspect of the fundamental identity or _self_ , leaving a trace or impression of every true witch or wizard."

"What if you've never done a ritual?" Mary asked, thinking of her alternate self.

Professor Snape waved away this concern. "Everyone in the Old Families would have, and almost every pureblood or child of a mixed family is introduced to magic through, as you said, the birthday rituals, on their third, seventh, and thirteenth year. Those leave a stronger impression, it is true. But there is also a trace left by accidental magic, when wild magic, as they say, comes to the aid of children who cannot yet control it and do not understand it. Even muggleborns with no concept of a ritual are known to the magic."

"Oh, okay. But how does that help us figure out my parents' parents?"

"Patience is a virtue of Slytherin House," the professor remarked before continuing. Mary shut up, suitably chastised. "This impression of your magic, the theorists say, is a part of the life-spark, your fundamental identity. Of course, the nature of the soul, animus, life-spark or what have you is still hotly debated, mostly in German, though there is a think-tank working out of Baton Rouge that has come up with some interesting twists on meme theory which might prove profitable to pursue. In any case, I digress. The fundamental identity argument is a useful concept in apparition and human transfiguration, any shape-shifting or dimension travel, really. But it is also the principle that allows us to bind demons and the reason that names have power, and why you ought to be careful about who uses your blood and how. The name of a thing, like the blood and the magic, is an aspect of its fundamental self. Different sides of it, if you will, but all ways of approaching one whole, indivisible definition of a _being_."

Mary wasn't following this at all, but she nodded anyway.

"I've lost you," the wizard sighed.

"Erm, yes, sir."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I have." He sighed. "Put it this way, then: Your magic, your blood, and your name all define you. They are all linked, and who _you_ are is evident in all of them. We want to know the names of your blood ancestors, so we draw a connection from your blood to your parents' and grandparents' blood, which is in you, to their unique magical signature, which is registered by free magic, to their names, which are entangled with their blood and magic on the most basic level."

She still didn't think she really understood, but she was glad he was still trying to explain. Trying to comprehend magic far outside of her experience certainly beat sitting in silence and waiting to see if she really was related to the Dark Lord. Six minutes had already passed.

"I've lost you again. Powers, this is why I so dislike teaching."

Mary bit her lip. She hadn't meant to offend him, she just couldn't quite wrap her mind around the idea that magic knew her somehow, and could read her name out of her blood.

"Don't give me that look," the professor said, but there was no venom in his tone. "I should think after two years you are well aware of the fact that I do not care to teach children. It is not as though I go to any pains to hide the fact," he added without a trace of irony.

"Umm, if you don't mind my asking, sir, and, um, if it's not too forward… why do you do it, then? Teach, I mean."

"Impertinent chit." The professor scowled, but it didn't seem to be directed at her. "I am bound to Dumbledore, until the Dark Lord is gone for good, and he insists that I earn my keep. There are perks – the lab, access to ingredients far beyond what would normally be available. But in exchange I must teach all you empty-headed little fools the most basic and trivial aspects of what should be considered a high art year in and year out."

They sat in silence for nearly two minutes before Mary dared to venture another question. "What would you do, if you didn't teach?" For all even the Slytherins admitted that their Head of House was a terrible professor, she couldn't imagine him doing anything else.

"Research," he said succinctly.

"Potions research?"

"Or Defense, or Mind Magic. The former, of course, is a bit taboo in Magical Britain, as it obviously requires an advanced knowledge of the Dark Arts, but the latter is disgracefully understudied as well."

"What is it, mind magic?"

The professor made a sort of _hmmm_ sound. "Technically speaking, mind magic is any magic which takes place in a mindscape, but what people generally think of is a series of highly specialized techniques which are a combination of the art of scrying, and the art of compulsion. Before Dumbledore became the headmaster, the Divination Professor, John McKinnon, offered a NEWT option in the subject. I believe he works for St. Mungo's now, training new Mind Healers. The scrying aspect, of course, is the divination part, and allows one to experience not the future or the past, but the minds of other people. And compulsion, which is considered a Dark Art, is used to… manipulate the mental patterns. Sometimes this involves linking commands to memories, rather like Riddle did, when he convinced you to trust him. More often, however, it is rather like freeform geomancy: shifting of the memories and thought patterns as one manipulates free energy and lei lines in the absence of runic mediators. I suppose it should not come as a surprise that one who is instinctively good at mind magic tends to also be instinctively good at freeform magic.

"McKinnon and Riddle, yes, before you ask, _that_ Riddle, published a treatise on the application of will in the two disciplines back in 1945. They suggest that it is the same application of will, with different focal loci. The problem then becomes why it is so much more difficult to affect the external world via freeform magic, and there the two authors differed in opinion. McKinnon has spent the last forty years exploring the role of Fundamental Identity in mind magic, which he believes may facilitate a certain ease of manipulation within an individual's mind, be it their own or a patient's.

"Riddle, on the other hand, insisted in the treatise that there is a relationship between the localization of one's personal magical field or aura in relation to the body and the ability to employ freeform magic, which leads to a difference in what he referred to as 'leverage' between those using broad contacts between their own magic and the external environment and those using tightly focused 'wandless' magic. 'Wandless' magic, or traditional wand-spells performed without a wand as a focus, requires a much greater degree of power exertion, as well as greater focus and control, than freeform magic, which he argues should be almost instinctively easy, even outside of the mindscape. It is a rather radical perspective, to be sure, as most do not seem to have the so-called instinctive grasp of how to manipulate the environment through broad contact, and now that I know more of the man, I'm not entirely certain that he didn't just publish it to bother Dumbledore, who is a firm proponent of the wandless school.

"Regardless, it has been well established that the freeform approach is the one used by most legilimens in exploring and altering mental environments. If Riddle's comments on 'instinctiveness' are correct, this may explain why so few wizards have a talent for legilimency. They are capable of altering their own mental state to a degree, but not others'. The skills associated with mind magic can be very useful for interrogation and obliviation and the like, but I suspect there are developments yet to be made in Mind Healing, dealing with the mental effects of different curses, therapeutic value of sharing memories and the like, through posterior integration of wandless focal elements into the freeform approach, potentially guided by recent advances in psychological theory.

Professor Snape suddenly seemed to recall that his audience was, in fact, a second-year, and sent Mary a rueful look. "How much of that did you understand?"

Mary, who had more or less just been letting his words wash over her while she tried to figure out when Riddle graduated, and wondering whether she dared ask if Professor Snape would teach her to fend off mind magic like Riddle's compulsions, scrambled to answer. "Mind magic is like divination mixed with compulsion, which is kind of like some forms of wandless magic, especially the one Riddle practiced. Magical theory is a lot more connected than Professors Flitwick and McGonagall make it sound like in class. And Riddle may have published on a radical theory just out of school just to irritate Dumbledore. Did they not get along, then?"

"Before he left school, I believe. And no. Tom Riddle's first month in Slytherin was not unlike your own, though you may be reassured to know that he actually had _his_ snake bite _his_ Malfoy, not just threaten to do so. Dumbledore legilimized him, almost certainly without his permission. From what I've gathered from the Records, their relationship deteriorated from there."

Mary considered the implications of her solution to her situation in Slytherin being so similar to the young Tom Riddle's, and then, deciding that that was an uncomfortable avenue of thought, decided that she did dare to make her request. "Umm…"

"Dark Powers, don't stutter."

Mary bit her lip, then said very quickly, "Could you teach me mind magic? Sir?" she added belatedly.

"What, precisely, would you want to know?"

"I, erm… that is…" The professor raised an eyebrow at her inarticulate, half-started request. "The compulsions, sir," she finally said. "You said Riddle put compulsions in my mind, and I really, really don't want that to happen again."

"No."

"No?" Mary had not expected such a flat refusal. "Why not, sir?" she tried to keep her tone from becoming whiny, but she wasn't sure if she succeeded. It just seemed terribly unfair of him to flat out refuse to teach her something that would be so useful to know.

"For one thing," he said wryly, "Your personality is decidedly unsuited to Occlumency. I doubt whether you have any natural talent for the art at all. For another, you are nearly thirteen, and the beginning of puberty is precisely the worst time of life to begin studying the mind arts, as it is the time when your emotions will be least under your control. Thirdly, it is highly unlikely that you will ever meet anyone besides myself and the Dark Lord who are capable of compelling you so subtly that you are unable to recognize and therefore disregard the compulsion regardless of your capability in mind arts. It would be a waste of your time and my own to go to the trouble of teaching you solely for that purpose. Need I go on?"

"No, sir," Mary sighed. She still thought it would be good to know. She definitely wasn't going to tell him that she wanted to know Occlumency so she could get away with things like the Veritaserum Conspiracy more easily.

Silence fell around them again, and Mary looked at the timer: Six minutes to go. She gracelessly attempted to re-start their previous conversation. "So if you were researching mind magic, you'd be a healer of sorts?"

Professor Snape rolled his eyes at her impertinence, but he did answer. "No. I have some skill at healing, and especially cursebreaking as it applies to healing, which is more like Dark Arts than any other legal discipline, but I would prefer to focus on the advancement of techniques, not on the problems of the individual."

Mary considered this for a moment. "And the same for Potions, and DADA?"

"For Potions I would most likely open an apothecary and take commissions for developing new solutions, rather than developing new methods entirely. Dark Arts, well… There are always new curses being developed. Effective countermeasures, or improving the efficiency and efficacy of existing counters, is nearly always a welcome endeavor."

"But not always?"

"There will always be those idiots who see a Dark wizard practicing dark magic without taking the time to think about how or why," the Dark wizard said, making a scorn-filled face at the distant, anonymous fools who would judge him for his past, Truce or no Truce.

Mary smirked at his expression, almost comically filled with venom, and looked at the timer.

Four minutes to go.

Professor Snape must have seen her sideways glance and the sudden preoccupation which followed, because he said quietly, "Do try not to worry. Regardless of what this test reveals, Lily will always be the girl I knew growing up, and you will always be… Mary Elizabeth. It… needn't affect you, unless you let it."

Mary bit her lip. "Why did you want to know, then, if it doesn't really matter?"

"For myself? Curiosity. If it were true, it would go a long way toward explaining Lily's unusual effectiveness against the Dark Lord, and any bit of knowledge might be a boon in finally eradicating his shade. For you? Knowledge is power, and knowing where you came from can only help you, in the long run. It would be far better to know now, rather than to have it sprung on you when the goblins do your inheritance test at seventeen. There are those who would try to use such information against you, if they knew, or suspected. If you know, you may plan for such an eventuality." The man shrugged. "As I said before, it is almost always better to know than to suspect."

Mary nodded grimly as he stood and decanted some of the second potion into the same glass, now clean. It was thick and black as ink.

"Your hand, Miss Potter?"

She rose to join him at the workbench, slowly, as though underwater. He produced a potions-knife from somewhere inside his robes and jabbed her left index finger deeply, before she could think to protest. Blood welled to the surface and dripped into the glass: one drop, then a second, and after a long pause, the third. Professor Snape reset the timer before turning to heal her finger with two spells Mary had never heard of before: _Expurgate_ and _confervetur_.

After the longest three minutes of Mary's life, and without another word between them, the professor upended the thick potion onto the parchment, and words began to form:

 ** _Mary Elizabeth Potter_**

 ** _James Charles Potter_**

 _Charlus Georgius Potter_

 _George Henry Potter_

 _Charlotte Marie Gentry_

 _Bellatrix Dorea Black_

 _Draco Cadmus Black_

 _Lorelei Amelia Lestrange_

These names were familiar. Charlus Georgius was the Potter who had made their family Light, instead of Neutral, because the then-head of House Black had said something insulting to his wife, Dorea, at some dinner party or another. Charlotte Gentry was the last Gentry – her brother predeceased her with no children, which was how the Potters gained control of the Gentry Seat in the Wizengamot. Draco Black, the fifth or sixth of his name, was far removed from the core of the Black Family Tree, a poor cousin who married surprisingly well. Dorea, his daughter, had the power of her mother's money, and the prestige of the Black name, though according to Professor McGonagall, she had never used it much. Both Dorea and Charlus had despised politics.

As the next name coalesced, Mary willed the potion to stop. If Lily Evans was really muggleborn, the daughter of Mary and Fred Evans, she would be the last name on the list.

 ** _Lily Irene Evans_**

She held her breath, but the magic took no notice. A wave of cold washed over her, and she looked away as more letters formed. She did not need to see it to know what it would say: Tom Riddle. Who else?

She collapsed into her chair, eyes closed, mind blank, save for the thought that no one could _ever_ know.

She had known it was a possibility, of course, but she hadn't truly expected it.

It could have all been coincidence, or Professor Snape reading too much into his old friend's actions, twenty years later.

But it wasn't.

She knew better than to ask whether there could have been some mistake.

She was related to that – that _monster._ His _granddaughter_ , even if neither of them _ever_ acknowledged it (and if she had her way, they wouldn't).

She could not have said how much time passed before she realized Professor Snape was speaking quietly, almost to himself.

"…makes sense," he was saying, "she died the year after I met Lily – she found her in an old photo album when we were fourteen. There was a certain resemblance, though of course we thought she took after her grandmother, and her mother after her father."

"Who?"

The professor passed the parchment to Mary. Black letters, now dry, were stark against the pale page:

 ** _Mary Elizabeth Potter_**

 ** _James Charles Potter_**

 _Charlus Georgius Potter_

 _George Henry Potter_

 _Charlotte Marie Gentry_

 _Bellatrix Dorea Black_

 _Draco Cadmus Black_

 _Lorelei Amelia Lestrange_

 ** _Lily Irene Evans_**

 _Tom Marvolo Riddle_

 _Merope Vela Gaunt_

 _Matilde Evelyn Harrison_

"Lily's aunt Matilde. Her mother, I should say."

Mary shook her head. She didn't know the name. Aunt Petunia had never mentioned her.

"She died in '65 or '66. She was a witch, muggleborn, though neither of us knew it. Would that we had – things might have turned out differently – _so_ differently – if only Lily had been known as a half-blood…" he trailed off pensively, then pulled a pen from an internal pocket and began to draw a family tree on the back of the parchment.

Marina and Albert Harrison sat at the top of the page, with Merope and '?' Riddle, Lorelei and Draco Black, and Charlotte and George Potter. Marina and Albert had two daughters, Mary and Matilde. All of Mary's other grandparents were apparently only children. Mary Harrison married Fred Evans, and they had one daughter, Petunia, who married Vernon Dursley. Matilde Harrison had one daughter with Tom Riddle – though they certainly had not been married – and hid her with her sister: Lily Evans, who married James Potter, leading to Mary Elizabeth.

"You've missed one," Mary said quietly, leaving aside the question of how he knew her muggle great-grandparents' names. The professor raised an eyebrow at her. "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have a son, Dudley."

Professor Snape added the boy obligingly.

"So my mum and Aunt Petunia were cousins, not sisters. How could they have not _known_?"

The man sighed, momentarily looking much older than his thirty-something years. "The first thing you must know, and this will likely be a painful truth, is that whatever… relations… Riddle had with Ms. Harrison were likely… not consensual. From what I recall of the Harrisons, from the little Lily told me, they were very religious. They would have raised their daughters, Mary and Matilde both, to value even unborn life. I suspect, and this is only speculation, you understand, that when Ms. Harrison realized she was with child, she would have taken pains to hide the pregnancy, but she would not have wanted to kill any child, even _his_.

"It is… damnably simple, really, to memory charm muggles. It would have been incredibly easy to make the Evanses believe that Lily was their child. In fact, I suspect Fred Evans named her. The flower names were his family's tradition for girls. They moved to Cokeworth, I believe, the year that Lily was born, probably under a compulsion, in order to hide any discrepancies with the pregnancy from their friends. They were estranged from the Harrisons, Albert and Marina, when Lily and I were young. I only met them once, later, and she hardly ever spoke of them. Matilde died when Lily and I were five or six. I don't think they ever met, and the Evanses didn't go to the funeral. Lily was very disappointed. She wanted to meet the rest of her family, but we never even saw a picture of the Harrisons until the summer after third year.

"Petunia and Lily… they were raised as sisters. For all anyone ever knew, they _were_. They certainly treated each other as such, up until the Hogwarts letters came. And, I suppose, after as well, though Petunia was horribly envious, and Lily could do nothing to console her. Fred and Mary, they spoiled Petunia as much as they could, trying to make it up to her that Lily had magic and Petunia didn't, but of course that didn't work. They were good people, but they never really understood magic. And of course they didn't like me at all, but Lily insisted on bringing me around, and they were hardly surprised to find out that we would be going to school together."

"You were best friends," Mary said quietly, interrupting his reminiscences.

Professor Snape thought for a moment, then inclined his head. "She was my first and only true friend," he admitted.

Well, that certainly explained why he seemed to know more about Mary's muggle relations than she did. Aunt Petunia had never mentioned the Harrisons, and hardly ever even talked about the Evanses.

"Could you, maybe… that is, would you tell me about her, sometime?"

"Someday, yes. When you're older." He must have caught the irritated look that she tried to hide, because he added, "I would not tell you our story, mine and Lily's, only to have you not understand the nuances of it. Believe me when I say you have not yet seen enough of the world to do so."

"Fine," Mary snapped, crossing her arms petulantly. "But I'll hold you to that. Someday."

The professor smiled, sadly, she thought. "I look forward to it." He hesitated for a long moment. Mary wondered if she ought to bring the subject back around to _him_. Before she could speak, however, the man continued. "This," he said, gesturing at the parchment, "changes nothing. Lily was… well, I can hardly deny that there were some similarities between her and the Dark Lord. Had I not seen them, I would not have prepared the test. But she was the sister I never had, and that will always mean more to me. If… if things had gone differently between us, if circumstances had been different, I might have been your godfather."

He sat quietly as Mary considered this information, trying to imagine a world where Professor Snape was not an ex-Death Eater, or where Lily was Lily Harrison and not a muggle-born, or perhaps even a world where the Death Eaters had successfully recruited the Potters, as Professor Snape had last year said they had tried. It was surprisingly difficult. She didn't know exactly what a proper godfather was supposed to do, but she rather liked Professor Snape. He had saved her life from Quirrellmort at least twice, and gave her lots of information that the Headmaster had refused to share, and when they were in private he was kind and sometimes even funny. He let her get away with dragon smuggling and she was pretty sure he knew more about the Conspiracy than he let on, but he was turning a blind eye to that too. And he had promised to tell her more about her mother, and had already told her more about her than anyone else, even aside from revealing her true parentage. It was strange to think of Professor Snape as having _friends_ , but she supposed that if things had gone differently, he would have been a friend of her family.

"I think I would have liked that," she said at last.

"If that is the case…" Professor Snape said slowly, "then I believe we may safely say that we have moved beyond the realm of formality, at least in private."

Mary was stunned. Of all the things he might have said, that was the one she was least expecting, or so it seemed, now that he had. But she knew the correct response: "I believe we are in accordance."

"Please, call me Severus."

"Only if I am Elizabeth."

"Mary Elizabeth."

"Severus." Oh, that was strange! And now Professor Snape – Snape – was smirking at her. "What's so funny, sir?"

"You looked like you thought I was going to hex you for daring to speak my name. Rest assured, I do know what an invitation to informality entails, though I will be forced to take points if you refer to me thusly in front of your friends."

"It's not that," she said, face warm. "It's just… It's weird, calling anyone old enough to be my father by his first name! Would you be terribly offended if I _didn't_ use your given name, at least until I get used to the idea?"

The man's features relaxed. "As you like. The offer is open." Mary had the impression he had found it just as strange as she.

"Thank you, sir," she said seriously. "I'm not sure I could deal with that much strangeness along with the whole undead, evil grandfather thing."

This drew an actual laugh from the man – not quite so good as when she asked him why he couldn't have killed Quirrellmort a bit sooner, but a genuine laugh nonetheless. "Very well, then," he said, solemnity falling over his features again. "And regarding the 'undead, evil grandfather thing,' as you so eloquently put it…"

Mary stood and dipped one corner of the parchment into the flames still flickering beneath the nearer cauldron. It caught at once, the names and family tree disintegrating into ash and a wisp of blue smoke. "What undead, evil grandfather?" she asked, smirking at the professor.

Snape, however, did not share her levity. "Don't breathe that smoke!" he snapped, sending a spell at her. It created a bubble around her head, filled with fresh air

"Erm… Oops?" Her voice echoed oddly in her own ears, distorted by the charm.

The professor looked very much like he would like to pinch the bridge of his nose, but his own bubble prevented it. "While I do appreciate your flare for the dramatic, you would do well to avoid burning anything coated in a potion with which you are unfamiliar. Have you learned nothing from having class with Longbottom?"

"Sorry, sir."

" _As_ I was _saying_ , it would be best, I think, if we were not to discuss the relationship between yourself and Riddle with anyone else unless it becomes relevant."

"Agreed."

"Very well. In that case, you had better find your way back to the dormitories before Miss Moon begins to wonder what I've done with you," he said, ushering her out of the hidden room and removing the charm.

"Yes, sir," Mary grinned.

Snape sighed, "Farewell, Mary Elizabeth."

"Thank you, sir," she said, slipping out the door. If she had looked back, she might have seen a look like fondness flit across the Potions Master's face before it was replaced by his usual detached expression, but she was already considering what she would tell Lilian about why Snape had wanted to see her alone after class and why their meeting had taken so long.

Thursday, 3 June 1993 Hospital Wing

Despite her lighthearted show of bravado in burning all evidence of her relationship to the Dark Lord, Mary could not help but brood on it whenever she failed to distract herself over the next two weeks. Lilian had noticed that something was off with her, but she thought it was related to the Chamber experience in general – She knew the brooding had begun after Mary's meeting with Snape, and Mary had told her that the meeting with Snape was a follow-up, to see if any of her memories had managed to return. She didn't actually think such a thing was possible, but she also didn't think Lilian knew for certain either. In any case, the other Slytherin was too concerned with what she termed "The Mystery of What Hermione's Up To and Why She's Sneaking Around and Refusing to Tell Us Anything" to spend too much time worrying about Mary's sudden tendency toward moody silence.

To be fair, "The Mystery of What Hermione's Up To and Why She's Sneaking Around and Refusing to Tell Us Anything" turned out to be a valid concern. It was not unusual for the Slytherins to only see their Ravenclaw friend in classes or at meals for several days in a row, but before April, it was most often because the Slytherins had Quidditch practice. After they had flown their last match of the season, practice had been cut down to three hours on Saturday morning (more as a way to relieve the stress of revising than anything else) and they were free to realize that Hermione was not around. At first, the Slytherins had assumed that she was spending time with her Ravenclaw friends or little Ginny, but after a week, it became clear that she wasn't with them – if she was, she would simply have told them when they asked what she was doing after classes. Instead, she made a habit of saying something vague about revising and then vanished mysteriously halfway through dinner. She wasn't in the library, or, according to Aerin and Luna, up in Ravenclaw tower.

Mary had been quite concerned about her friend's whereabouts until the whole Undead, Evil Grandfather Thing had been confirmed. After that point, however, she found herself more inclined to dismiss whatever Hermione was up to with an attitude of 'she'll tell us when she's ready, and the less I know, the less I have to lie to Emma and Dan about it.' Lilian, conversely, only became more interested the longer Hermione refused to tell them what was going on, to the point of interrogating all of their mutual friends and acquaintances about the issue.

Aerin didn't know anything either, but she was more concerned with passing her first end-of-year Arithmancy exam and helping Luna and Ginny (whose progress over her first year was sporadic, to say the least) with their revising than with ferreting out what new trouble Hermione was making. Mary and Lilian rather suspected that Aerin was taking their looming detentions with Snape a bit harder than the Slytherins. She had been rather irritable with the three second-years lately, and hadn't even spoken to any of the fourth-years, as far as Mary knew.

All the twins would say was that they didn't know anything, and if they did, they still wouldn't _say_ anything, because they were so very proud of their _ickle firecracker's_ ability to stir up trouble, and they were certain that whatever she was up to would be epic to behold. This, Lilian interpreted to mean that they definitely knew what was going on, but that absolutely nothing she could do would convince them to admit it. There was, as the boys insisted, a certain Pranking Code which they must adhere to, and not ruining the joke was one of its key tenets. After that particular encounter, the older Slytherin had begun to complain that the twins and Hermione had spent far too much time together over the past year. Mary couldn't help but agree. First-year Hermione would _never_ have dared to do half the things she had instigated over the past year. Even discounting their kidnapping tendencies, the twins were clearly a bad influence.

Still, Mary and Lilian knew that Hermione was up to something, even if the only hint of what that _something_ might be was that the Weasley twins thought it would be epic, so it was not entirely surprising when Hermione failed to appear for dinner one Thursday at the beginning of June. What _was_ surprising was that Professor Snape, in all his billowing glory, had stopped by the Slytherin table and suggested that Mary and Lilian ought to find the time to visit Miss Granger in the hospital wing before curfew if at all possible. He had drifted away with a self-satisfied smirk before they could ask any questions.

Madam Pomfrey was happy to see Mary in a non-patient capacity, though she tutted over how some students never seemed to make it through a year without visiting her, and couldn't the girls try to take better care of each other, and avoid doing stupid things like, well… _that_? After a few minutes of quiet chatting, the matron left them to work on her inventory – "Got to get ready for the end-of-term rush, loves. Do keep it down out here." – allowing the girls to finally see their friend.

 _That_ , as it turned out, was what appeared to be a partially-transfigured Hermione. She was lying on one of the beds with privacy curtains pulled shut, not under the covers, but curled up on top of them. She had long, pointed orange ears sticking up through her ever-curly hair, and her nails had become distinctly claw-like. Every bit of skin they could see was covered in soft orange fur, and there was a _tail_ curled around her tucked-up feet.

Lilian burst out laughing at once, a reaction which only doubled when the half-cat Ravenclaw opened one bright yellow eye and said, "Oh, not you too!" while trying to hide her fur-covered face behind her equally fur-covered hands.

"Maia? What _happened_?"

"You've been trying to turn yourself into an animagus! _That's_ what you've been up to! Why didn't you _tell_ us?" Lilian jumped in before Hermione could answer.

She gave up on covering her face in order to give the Slytheirns an exasperated look. "No! I'm not an animagus! That takes far longer than a month to manage. It was Polyjuice Potion! The stupid boys wanted me to be a 'third Weasley twin' for some prank or other, but then they gave me a _cat hair_! And bloody _Snape_ –" " _Professor_ Snape." "– _whatever!_ He won't tell me how to turn myself _back_ , and Madam Pomfrey says it will take _weeks_ for her to reverse all the effects physically and individually! Stop laughing! You guys are the worst!" She tried to throw herself dramatically back onto the bed, but let out a feline howl when she landed poorly on her own tail. " _Damn it_!"

"So have you told your parents yet?" Mary asked, still giggling.

"Ugh, no. I mean, I _will_ , but don't you think it would be better if I wait until, well, I don't look like one of those stupid Japanese cartoon characters?"

"No," the Slytherins said firmly, in tandem.

"You'll get much more pity if you do it now," Lilian added, followed by Mary's, "and they'll be even more pissed if you try to hide something from them again. And Flitwick's probably already owled them after the Howler thing."

Hermione groaned.

"He does know, right?" Lilian asked.

"Yes, of course he does. Madam Pomfrey had to tell him. It's not like this was an in-and-out sort of visit."

"Who else knows?"

"Well, you two, obviously, Snape," " _Professor_ Snape." "Professor McGonagall – Pomfrey called her in when the boys dropped me off because she thought it might have been a transfiguration gone wrong, and that's just not her specialty. She didn't call in Snape –" " _Professor_ Snape." "– until Professor McGonagall said it wasn't any transfiguration or curse she knew. And of course he spotted it at once, which is why there's no point keeping quiet about the potion, and of course Fred and George know. Remind me to find a way to get those bloody tossers back for this over the summer."

"I hardly think you'll forget it," Lilian pointed out, sniggering again.

"Why did you agree to be a 'third Weasley twin' in the first place?" Mary asked. She honestly didn't know why Hermione was even associating with the boys anymore.

Hermione sighed. It came out as a disgruntled cat-noise, which was rather amusing to the Slytherins. "Yeah, laugh it up, you jerks. I was having some issues with acquiring two key ingredients and they offered to get them if I would help them out with a prank, a big one for the end of the year, which they insisted could only be pulled off with the use of Polyjuice. It takes a month to brew. I actually started working on it before the whole thing at Easter, but I missed a step while we were worrying about you and Ginny and those two idiots down in the Chamber, so I had to re-start," she said, nodding at Mary. "It was finally done yesterday, so they _said_ we were going to do the prank today, but it _turns out_ the joke was on me! Bastards! They just started cackling and being all, 'Do we _need_ a reason?' and 'Lighten up, firecracker,' and 'at least we found you a girl cat!' _At least we found you a girl cat_! Honestly! I'm a _cat_! Being a cat with a penis couldn't possibly be _that_ much worse!"

"What about a cat with _half_ a penis?" Lilian asked. She was almost crying now from laughing so hard, and had had to take a seat on the neighboring bed. "Because you're really only like, half-cat..."

Hermione threw her pillow at Lilian, and otherwise refused to dignify that question with a response.

"And, erm… I don't suppose you'd tell us why you had to make Polyjuice in the first place?"

Hermione hung her head. "I was curious. I wanted to see if I could do it."

Mary smacked herself in the forehead. "Of course. _Bloody_ _Ravenclaws!_ Let's just do it because we _can_!"

The cat-girl quirked her head to the side. "That's uncanny. Does he, I don't know, train all the Slytherins to do that?"

"What?"

"Talk like himself. Sorry – That's _exactly_ what Snape –" " _Professor_ Snape." "-said. Without smacking himself in the face. Same intonation and _everything_."

"Nope. You just pick up the sarcasm after a while," Lilian said cheerfully. "So how long are you going to be here?"

"Madam Pomfrey said I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted – until she sorted out the major physical issues, anyway, but she said it would take _weeks_ , and exams are only two weeks away! I can't miss all those revising sessions! The other option is that she fix some of the more cosmetic damages, like the fur and the eyes, and I go back to classes and try to figure out how to un-do this. Snape –" " _Professor_ Snape." "-hinted that there was a simple fix I was just _overlooking_ and refused to just fix it. He was really rude about it too."

The Slytherins exchanged a significant look.

"He likes you," Lilian said, undisguised awe in her tone.

"No, you _impressed_ him," Mary corrected her, struggling to keep envy out of her own voice.

"What? No, he doesn't, and I'm sure I didn't. I turned myself into an anime character, for God's sake!"

"No, listen," Lilian said excitedly. "Are you being punished?"

"Well… no. Professor Flitwick said he considered this," she gestured at her half-transformed state, "more than enough incentive not to do it again."

"And Professor Snape didn't take a hundred points from Ravenclaw, or give you another month's detentions for next term? He's just making you figure out your own mistake and letting you fix it?"

"But _he_ could fix it _right away_! I'm sure he knows what happened. He was all, 'Miss Granger, I am terribly disappointed. Anyone who can brew a proper Polyjuice potion ought to be able to tell the difference between human and _feline_ hair… alas, native intelligence and book learning never can substitute for a _complete_ _lack_ of _common sense_.'"

"Wait, wait, wait, he actually _said_ that?"

"You're not just messing with us?"

Both Mary and Lilian were familiar with Hermione's ability to repeat conversations verbatim. It was incredibly irritating when they got into an argument and the Ravenclaw threw their own words from months before back in their faces, and very useful when they missed key instructions in their shared classes, though she flatly refused to repeat Binns' lectures in a more upbeat and animated tone.

" _Yes_ , and then he went on about, oh, let's see… 'For one who prides herself on her logical faculties, you do have a frankly disturbingly _Gryffindor_ tendency to rush into things without thinking. Tell me, Miss Granger – what would you have done if Step Thirty-Seven had gone wrong? It is difficult to perceive the change in vapor-color even within the controlled environment of a proper potions laboratory, and a mistake at such a critical juncture, if uncorrected, would have led to your death within twenty minutes of taking the potion due to _conium_ poisoning – you, I daresay, would not have noticed anything amiss, save for the failure of the potion to have its desired effect, until it was too late to reverse the effects.' He, erm… went on about different potentially fatal Polyjuice blunders for twenty minutes or so. And then he was like, 'That whole business about questioning your peers about the Chamber has your signature all over it. Overly-complex, difficult to execute, with no effective plan of egress and a _damning_ disregard for the rules and the rights of your fellow students…' Then he, ah, went on for another ten minutes or so like _that_ , basically accusing me of being some kind of evil mastermind in the making, and a ridiculously incompetent one at that. Oh, come off it, why are you doing that – that little Slytherin I-know-something-you-don't-know smirk? Knock it off!"

Mary and Lilian turned to each other to find that they were indeed sharing the smirk in question.

"Well," Lilian explained, "It's like this: Professor Snape doesn't give compliments. He doesn't tell you he likes you or that you've done well. If you have a problem, you can talk to him about it, or at least Slytherins can. We know you think he's a shite professor, but he's a great Head of House. Anyway, he'll give you solid advice or help or whatever, but he doesn't actively show favoritism. Well, he's blatantly anti-Gryffindor, but we think that's mostly because he's trying to get the Headmaster to fire him. The point is, you have to really read between the lines to figure out if he actually _likes_ you."

"And he does," Mary continued. "Here, go back to the beginning of what you were quoting and I'll translate the Snape-speak."

Hermione smiled for the first time since the Slytherins had entered the ward. "All right. 'Miss Granger, I am terribly disappointed.'"

"Disappointed means he thinks you could have done better."

"'Anyone who can brew a proper Polyjuice potion ought to be able to tell the difference between human and _feline_ hair…'"

"He knows that you made the Polyjuice correctly and is acknowledging that, which is huge – isn't it like OWL level? But he's also correcting you for being too hasty and assuming that the Weasleys, of all people, were trustworthy."

"'Alas, native intelligence and book learning never can substitute for a _complete_ _lack_ of _common sense_.'"

"Again, acknowledging that you're smarter than probably the rest of our year combined, and you can clearly follow directions in a book since you managed to make the potion, but you totally, completely failed to take into account variables that the book didn't warn you about."

"Do you Slytherins think about things like this _all the time_?" The Slytherins in question shrugged and nodded. "All right, keep going. 'For one who prides herself on her logical faculties, you do have a frankly disturbingly _Gryffindor_ tendency to rush into things without thinking.'"

"That's just pure constructive criticism," Lilian took over. "So is the part about you being, what, an ineffective evil genius? He's pointing out your flaws, which means you can fix them. If he didn't like you, he would let you remain ineffective and easier to manipulate or dispose of when necessary."

Mary nodded. "He's very big on working up to your full potential, Professor Snape. So yeah, I'd say that. Oh, and he probably wanted to see if you'd let any more information slip about the Conspiracy. You didn't, did you?"

"No, of course not," the Ravenclaw said, offended.

"Good. I don't think he'd change our punishment now, but it probably gets you a few more brownie points that you didn't."

"I think she's still riding high on the points from telling him that if she were Quirrellmort, she would have stolen the stone first and killed you on the way out."

"Oh, yeah, probably. I'd forgotten about that. I haven't forgotten you said you'd frame me for the attacks, though. I thought you were my friend!" she said, miming a stab to the heart. "Are you sure you're in the right house?"

"Of course I am! And I stand by that as the most logical victim choice at the time," the Ravenclaw argued with a sharp-toothed grin.

"She _is_ in hospital for turning herself into a cat out of sheer curiosity," Lilian pointed out. "Well, half a cat, anyway."

"Hmmm, yeah. I suppose she's too trusting for Slytherin, anyway. Oh, that reminds me! Insulting your Gryffindor tendencies was a very subtle way of saying that you ought to have been a Slytherin, which is, as you know, the highest of compliments."

Hermione raised a skeptical eyebrow at that, but Lilian nodded fervently, just as Madam Pomfrey returned to shoo the Slytherins back to the dungeons before curfew.

As soon as they left the Hospital Wing, Lilian said, "I told you so! Those Weasleys have created a monster!"

"And its name is Catgirl," Mary returned.

They were in very good spirits by the time they returned to their Common Room.


	23. Loose Ends

[This is the last chapter. The next one is just an A/N for progress and responses to reviews.]

 **Chapter 17: Loose Ends**

Hermione returned to classes on Monday, face and hands newly hairless, and eyes back to their usual brown color, though the ears and tail remained. She complained about the tail especially, and the fact that she had had to alter all of her pants and trousers to accommodate it. She did write her parents and apprise them of the situation (the letter started with, "Don't be mad, but I might have done something a bit thoughtless…"). Emma must have mentioned it to Catherine, because a week later, Mary received an owl with an old-fashioned wizarding camera and a demand to take a photo of Catgirl.

When Colin Creevey saw Mary trying to operate the enormously outdated thing, he managed to make his way back into her good graces (or rather, into her good graces for the first time) by offering to help. He even sent one of the other Gryffindors as an intermediary with a note offering his assistance, rather than coming up to her himself. They, along with Lilian as a chaperone (in case he suddenly turned into a crazy person again and Mary needed a witness to vouch that she'd simply had to hex him) had spent an almost-enjoyable two hours in the library working out how to use the clunky camera. At the end, she had finally let him take a picture of herself, smiling politely from her nook in the stacks, though she still refused to sign it.

Sean's boyfriend, Carter Dunsidget, knew a boy in Hufflepuff who would develop anyone's photos for a small fee, and in due time, the picture of Hermione Granger, Catgirl, was returned to Catherine, along with the camera. Its double was forwarded, along with a large packet of other photos of the castle and the grounds, the girls and their friends, and even the Weasley twins, to the Grangers, who were much more understanding of Hermione's desire to stay at Hogwarts after seeing even the little bit of it they could capture in their moving pictures. Mary's favorite was the one of all the moving staircases shifting position. Lilian had gotten the twins to take it from a broom, hovering in the center of the Major Stairwell. Percy had given them detention for flying indoors, but they said it was worth it as long as they got a copy, which they did.

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The weekend after Hermione's Catification, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff played the final Quidditch match of the season, vying for third place. Slytherin had taken first with their overall point total and no losses over the course of the season. Ravenclaw was second, and Gryffindor just barely beat Hufflepuff for third in a grueling, four-hour battle which ended with Gryffindor's Thorpe taking the snitch for a forty-point, come-from-behind victory.

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The week before exams was filled with revising and, alarmingly, decisions on which classes to take the following year. Professor Snape sent owls to each of the second-years with appointment times to come discuss their future career goals. Mary's meeting was on Friday after dinner, which meant she got to skive off on Hermione's Charms revision (thank the Powers).

She reported as ordered at half past seven and was invited in.

Snape launched directly into a speech he had to have given to each of the others already, detailing the electives offered, their relative merits, and the pros and cons of each so far as future career options went. It turned out that every Slytherin was encouraged to take Runes, because they would be responsible for warding their own quarters once they reached fourth-year. Mary was fairly certain she had known that at one point, but had somehow forgotten. She had just gotten used to having to meet with her friends outside of her dorm room, she supposed. A minimum of two electives was required, Snape said, though many students chose to take three, at least through their OWLs. Mary decided to take Runes and Arithmancy, which had the best variety of future career possibilities, and Creatures, which sounded fun and at least as useful as Herbology.

Just before she left the office of her Head of House, she remembered to ask, "Just out of curiosity, Professor Snape… how much do you think a fifty-foot basilisk could go for on the open market? I'm asking for a friend…" It was almost true. The Weasleys had come up with the idea that since they had killed a bloody basilisk, they ought to get some financial compensation out of it, and had decided that if anyone at Hogwarts knew about rendering magical creatures into potions ingredients, it would be Snape. Mary would have refused to help them, but she agreed they (herself included) should get something out of the ordeal other than a horror story, and if Snape agreed, the twins had promised her an even third of whatever was left after he took his fee for dissecting it. She wasn't so used to having money yet that she would pass up an opportunity to get more.

He rolled his eyes and responded that if the Messers Weasley had a business proposition for him, they would have to approach him themselves before dismissing her to her revising.

Lilian decided to take Runes, Creatures, and Divination, and Hermione dithered so much over the decision that the older Slytherin eventually told her to just sign up for everything – the worst that could happen was that Flitwick or McGonagall would send her a letter over the summer telling her that she had to narrow it down to three. The Ravenclaw had agreed with a huff, muttering that at least that would give her a few more weeks to figure it out, preferably _after_ exams.

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The second-years had their Transfiguration Theory exam first-thing on Monday. They were revising in an unused classroom (the library having gotten too crowded for Mary's liking) the Saturday before when Hermione suddenly shouted, "Bloody _hell_ , I'm such an _idiot_!" and ran off, leaving her books and notes behind. After a bit of debate, the Slytherins decided to just wait for her to return. After all, she was hardly likely to abandon her notes _forever_.

She reappeared two hours later, free of tail and ears; teeth back to normal, human pointiness; and fingers back to, well, fingers instead of claws. She was almost crying with joy. "It was so simple, and it's been bothering me all this time, and I finally just _got_ it!" The solution to her problem turned out to be using Polyjuice _again,_ but with a bit of her own hair from before her cat-transformation. If it had the power to turn her halfway to a cat, it ought to have the power to turn her the same amount back (or slightly less, since Madam Pomfrey had already fixed the fur issue).

Normally the potion wore off after an hour, but since it was her own form, when it wore off, she would stay the same. It hadn't reversed properly the first time, she explained excitedly, because she had only made it halfway through the transformation to begin with, and her innate magic, which should have reverted her back, was essentially 'confused' by the improper interactions within the potion. The explanation was, quite frankly, a bit rushed and filled with tangents, and well over the level that they would need to know for their looming Potions Theory _or_ Transfiguration Theory exams, so Mary and Lilian dismissed it entirely, eventually convincing Hermione to explain exactly what had happened.

This time, it seemed, she had confirmed her plan of action with Professor Snape, and he had given her the go ahead, with only a reminder that it was illegal to use Polyjuice to impersonate anyone without their permission. It had taken her almost an hour to find a hair that she was certain was pre-transformation, but she had eventually tracked one down on a knitted hat she hadn't worn since April. One goblet of preserved potion later ("You didn't really think I'd got rid of the extra, did you?") and she was finally back to normal.

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The Summer Solstice fell on the Monday of Exam Week. Unlike the previous year, Mary remembered this in time to ask the older Slytherins about the celebration, though she realized belatedly that she had missed Imbolc _again_ , and Beltane, though that wasn't so important, as she couldn't participate yet, anyway. Sherrinford Pierce, a seventh-year Mary had never spoken to before, was apparently in charge of the day, and had absentmindedly invited Mary and any of her friends who might be interested to come to the lakeside at dawn to celebrate the Solstice.

Mary, Lilian, and Hermione had dragged themselves out of bed in the grey pre-dawn light, and were surprised to see that Luna was already waiting for them by the main doors. She was dressed in white robes, with a crown of flowers braided into her hair, and when they asked her why she was already up, she explained that the Flibbertigibbets had woken her. She also seemed to think that they had forgotten someone, and skipped off into the castle to find them.

Just before Pierce called the ritual to order, the strange little Ravenclaw reappeared with a very sleepy, very confused, bathrobe-clad Ginny Weasley in tow.

"What're we doing, Luna? Why're we outside?" the redhead asked as they approached the circle. "'S gotta be like, five in the morning. Oh! Hullo, Professors… everyone."

"Sorry we're not quite early," Luna said airily, "We were held up by Morpheus. Ginevra Phyllis, we're celebrating Litha."

"Ah… okay? Why?"

"You'll see. Mr. Pierce? The sun is rising."

The tall, skinny seventh-year, who had been watching the interaction between the two first-years intently along with everyone else, startled at the reminder.

"Right you are, Miss Lovegood! Gather round everyone, form up the circle!" Everyone was already standing roughly in a circle, so this was accomplished rather quickly. There were, Mary saw, looking around, far more students than she had expected – perhaps three dozen all told, along with all the usual professors. She thought she recalled Catherine saying that attendance was generally poor due to exams. But then again, she supposed, suppressing a yawn, compared to Mabon, it was a rather small crowd. The young man stepped into the center of the circle. "I am Sherrinford Pierce, and I will be the Master of Ceremonies for our observance today. Right, then, we'll just get on with it, I suppose, shall we?"

What followed was a very strange experience for Mary, largely because she didn't understand a word of it. She thought the wizard might have been speaking one of the Celtic languages for most of the invocation, but parts of it didn't sound human at all.

He must have called on the Cooperative Power, and the Tangible and Mundane, because it was their holiday. She couldn't have said which of them, however – or maybe it was all of them – had possessed the celebrants' bodies, moving them in a dance without words or song.

Unlike the way the Dark rituals had of drawing words from the participants, this was not forced – Mary felt as though, had she wanted to stop, had she dared to break the pattern, she could have. She simply knew the steps, and the pattern, and where she _ought_ to be – her part in the whole that was the ritual and the dance, and she did not _want_ to stop. It should have felt awkward, being moved by the magic, but even Lilian, who was arguably the least graceful girl Mary had ever met, moved fluidly.

The dancers shifted and swayed, moving arms and legs not in unison, but in complimentary motions, magic drawn from the air around them, or perhaps from deep within themselves, following the movement of their limbs. The Circle twisted clockwise around itself as a pillar of earth raised the Master of Ceremonies into the air. This was joined by what seemed like a wave, somehow standing and surrounding the pillar, and then a ring of fire which sprang into life between the Master of Ceremonies and the circle. It was fanned high by a sudden whirlwind, which pushed it away from the dancers, into the water. Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the standing wave collapsed into the pillar and they vanished.

The tall wizard made some declaration – or at least it sounded like a declaration – in the flowing, babbling language which didn't sound human, and the dance changed, moving the celebrants toward the center, then away, slowly dividing them into two distinct circles. The inner ring continued to move clockwise, while the outer ring reversed its direction. Shadows began to accumulate between the inner ring and Pierce, while wisps and rings of light zipped between the two circles of dancers.

Another inhuman command, and the darkness welled up, flowing outward, mingling with the light as both energies escaped the outer circle. The dance changed again. The students' movements became lighter and freer as the adults' seemed to become more deliberate and forceful. The circles redistributed themselves so that the adults were in the center ring, and they reversed directions. Magic began flowing into the circle, whipping and diving between the celebrants, creating currents and eddies, shaped by their movements, moving ever faster as they headed toward an unheard crescendo.

A single word from Pierce, and everyone froze. The magic continued its dance, around and between them, but also, Mary could now feel, within them, pulling on the participants' magic like a fast-moving stream around her ankles. It slowed by infinitesimal increments, settling into place, buoying them up and tying them together. With a sudden awareness, Mary _knew_ that there were forty-one other people in the circle, including their Master of Ceremonies, and that every one of them was now as awake and aware as she was. Luna, now standing to her left, laughed, like a tinkling of bells.

"Blessings be upon you all on this the day of longest light," Pierce called.

"Blessed be!" The circle answered as one, and Mary, for her part, could not imagine not having done so, the words called, but again, not forced from wherever they lay within her.

The magic ebbed away to wherever it had come from, releasing them gently from its thrall and leaving Mary feeling more awake and refreshed than, she was certain, she had ever been at sunrise before. Joyful chatter broke out among the crowd as they watched rosy-fingered Dawn creep across the sky, and then returned cheerfully to the Castle, breakfast, and the suddenly-unintimidating exams.

Everybody who refused to celebrate the Old Ways, Mary decided, was definitely missing out.

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Exam week passed in a blur of confidently-cast spells and the resigned scratching of quills. Mary was certain by the end of it that she had competently completed everything, even the snore-worthy History of Magic, with the possible exception of the DADA exam. Their written final for that class turned out to be _exactly_ the same idiotic Lockhart quiz the instructor had given them on their first day of classes. Mary had put down exactly the same answers, or as close as she could manage. Later she heard Zach Smith bragging that he had written a 'What I Learned in DADA This Year' essay on his, including acting skills and how to get away with punching self-important gits. She only _wished_ she had thought to do the same. No one could fault her on the practical, however, as she managed to stun Lockhart in their one-on-one assessment of self-defense skills. She threw his wand out the window, too, for old times' sake, and then pretended to have no idea where it might have gone when she revived him.

The Potions practical was easy enough, and with the notes Hermione had compiled (from outside sources only), the theory part was a breeze. Thankfully, no one was cursed during this year's exam, which, Mary joked, made it automatically better than last year's. For some reason, neither Hermione nor Lilian seemed to find this very funny, but then, nobody thought Hermione's joke about Charms being an illusion, and charms exams doubly so was very funny either. She just sighed and shook her head, muttering about wizards not getting muggle references.

The Charms exam _was_ on illusions, and glamours as well. The essay was on the difference between the two. It was all very straightforward. Professor Flitwick was good about covering the material which would be on the exam a second time over the course of the revising periods in the last week of "class."

Transfiguration was possibly the most difficult practical, with a focus on animate to inanimate transformations, but a bonus question on turning a mouse into a bat. Out of all of them, Mary thought Hermione was the only one who had managed that task successfully. Lilian had spent almost an hour bemoaning the fact that hers had only one wing, and still had a tail. Mary's had both its wings, but other than that was entirely mouse-like, like a tiny, fuzzy thestral. Professor McGonagall hadn't let her keep it. The theory exam wasn't easy either, but Hermione had drilled them on every likely question over the past two months, potions adventures notwithstanding, so Mary was confident she had answered them correctly.

Most of the year in Herbology had been devoted to the study of mandrakes, so it came as little surprise that the essay was on the Kingdom Magiflora, and how it was similar to and different from Animalia, with a bonus question on the moral implications of using Mandragora in healing. Mary took the rather moderate position that the mandrakes only imitated humans, and held no real sapience, so it was okay, if not ideal, to use them in the Rehumanizing Draught. Lilian said she had taken the "evil" side for fun, the one that held that humans had a responsibility first to their own species, so regardless of the sapience of mandrakes, it was okay to kill and use them. Hermione, who, to no one's surprise, had written nearly as much on the extra-credit question as the rest of the exam combined, fully exploring the question from all angles with references to both muggle and wizarding philosophy, was appalled by this. Lilian had just laughed. "It's just a bonus question! It's not like I _actually believe that_. If it was, like, centaurs or merfolk or something, I never would have done it. Lighten up, catgirl!"

The Astronomy exam was a nightmare, the practical lasting until nearly two in the morning. Mary was fairly sure she had labeled the stars of the Big Dipper as: "Don't care, can I go sleep yet?" On the other hand, she was positive she had the best examples of the influence of lunar phases on potions ingredient collection, with her references to the use of unicorn and thestral blood in Veritaserum. She half-hoped that Professor Sinistra would show it to Professor Snape, then whole-heartedly hoped that Professor Snape wouldn't think she was tweaking his nose. If nothing else, he might be distracted by the fact that Hermione had referenced as an example the fluxweed used in Polyjuice. It was, she swore, just the first thing that came to mind.

As it had been the year before, History of Magic was the second-years' last exam. Unlike the year before, however, Mary actually wrote the answers she knew were correct, rather than the answers she would have known from Binns' class, and restricted her plea to exorcise the ghost-professor to a single page.

At the feast, when her grades were returned, she was pleased to see that she had passed everything, again with mostly E's (Astronomy and History) and O's (Charms, Herbology, Potions, and Transfiguration), but an A in DADA. She took a certain vindictive pleasure in sharing this result with Hermione just as Colin Creevey approached the High Table, sent by the Slytherins to innocently question the so-called 'professor' about the feats in his book.

Mary had no idea how they managed to slip the blond ponce the truth serum, nor how they managed to get around the wards which otherwise kept the professors' conversations away from students' ears, but suddenly, Lockhart's magically magnified voice filled the hall:

"Why, yes, of course, I'd be delighted to tell you all about it! Terrible shame, your being petrified and all that. Does make for a rather disappointing first year. Anyway, buck up and all that. So you want to know about the Bandon Banshee, do you? Well, I have to say, the chappie who actually banished her was a great fellow. Met him in a pub over in Dublin, and when I heard his story, I just knew it was my big break. Of course I had to modify his memory a bit, and changed the name of the town – It was really Cobh, and that just doesn't roll off the tongue at all! Can you imagine, Cobh Banshee? I think _not_!"

"So you just… made it all up?" Colin's high, clear voice rang out over the sea of now-silent students. "The things in your books are fake?"

"Of _course not_ ," Lockhart said with a grin. "It was all done by _someone_ , I just write it up and make it a bit more interesting as needed." The grin faded as comprehension dawned. "I, erm… just said that out loud, didn't I?" he asked guilelessly.

Professor McGonagall put him in a body bind and levitated him from the hall, to the applause of every house. As they boarded the train the next morning, Mary heard that Lockhart had been arrested and questioned by the aurors, and was already awaiting trial for illegal obliviation charms, fraud, and false representation in print. The Prophet had managed to work him into their morning edition already.

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The train ride back to London went extraordinarily quickly. Hermione spent the first two hours trying to teach Mary, Lilian, Aerin, Ginny and Luna how to play a fiendishly difficult Granger family word association game called Skip Jump, which she swore was a real game, and not just something she made up on the spot to confuse them. It was very difficult and very silly, and they never seemed to get very far, because even Lilian only understood about half of Hermione's muggle references and associations, and no one could figure out how Luna was associating words _at all_ , and all of the magically raised girls had a tendency to associate 'magic' with everything. They eventually gave up when Luna patiently explained that clearly Ginny had associated Slytherin with books via Saturn, which meant that Crumple-horned Snorkacks were a perfectly valid connection, because if anyone had Twillks, it was him, and everyone knew Crumple-horned Snorkacks ate Twillks.

After that, the six had split up to visit other acquaintances, and say their farewells for the summer. The only truly interesting interaction was when they ran into the twins, and the boys had invited them all to come to their house, the Burrow, over the summer as they liked. Luna took them up on it at once, as she lived nearby, and Hermione looked like she would very much like to see how a magical family lived, but Lilian and Aerin said they would have to check with Sean, which Mary thought was their way of politely saying no, and Mary's summer was already planned out (not that she would have wanted to visit the twins, anyway, but she might have gone to check up on Ginny).

In deference to the need to have a nice long chat with the Grangers about exactly what had been going on at Hogwarts, and sooner rather than later, Professor McGonagall had agreed to let Mary go home with the Grangers for the first week of the holidays, and they were tentatively planning for Lilian to come visit the Urquharts again for the last week. She wasn't at all certain that she would be able to convince Catherine to let her visit the Weasleys even for a day. In fact, if it came to that, Mary wasn't certain she wanted to be anywhere near Mrs. Weasley for any length of time. She seemed like a hugger.

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Mary and Hermione met the elder Grangers outside the gate to Platform 9 ¾, Hermione flinging herself into her parents' arms, and Mary greeting them with a proper wizarding curtsey. Much to her surprise, Emma responded in kind, then explained with a laugh that Catherine had been teaching her a thing or two, on the rare occasions they had actually met up for tea. They were about to leave the station when Luna appeared from the crowd, trailing a white-haired, absent-minded looking man behind her.

"Mary Elizabeth! Hermione Jean! Wait!" she called. When she finally caught them, she added, "Hello, you must be Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Daddy, these are my friends, Mary Elizabeth of House Potter, and Hermione Jean of House Granger. Mr. Granger, Mrs. Granger, Hermione Jean, Mary Elizabeth, please meet my father, Mr. Xenophilius Lovegood."

"Hello, Mr. Lovegood," the girls chorused.

Emma gave hers and Dan's names, and then Dan said, "Lovegood? Not the chap that prints the Quibbler?"

"Oh, yes! Dear me, I hadn't expected you to read it!" the man exclaimed, adjusting his glasses. "You are muggles, are you not?" Hermione looked just as surprised as Mr. Lovegood that her parents read what was widely considered the foremost tabloid in Magical Britain.

Dan laughed. "We are, but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate a good bit of cutting satire or political commentary. I say, the naturalism column alone is worth the subscription. Movements of Heliopaths! Genius!"

"Oh, and we loved your series on seeking the elusive Crumple-horned Snorkack!" Emma added. "Bloody brilliant, though I gather from last week's article in the Prophet that most of the wizarding world didn't quite get the joke?"

Mr. Lovegood gave the muggle couple a rueful grin. "Well, if they did, it would hardly be worth the cost of printing. They'd have us shut down in a Victorian minute, the prudes."

"Too true, my good man. Too bloody true. We've got to get going, but we'd love to start a correspondence with you, wouldn't we, Emma?"

"Oh, yes! A letter to Granger House in Maidstone will find us."

"Excellent! We're at the Rookery, Ottery St. Catchpole."

"Lovely! We'll send you an owl," Emma said with a grin.

The adults exchanged farewells and pleased-to-have-met-you, while Luna executed a courtly bow that looked positively Arthurian toward the adults, and then leapt upon the girls, pulling them into a three-way hug.

"Thank-you for sharing your parents," she whispered to them. When both Mary and Hermione looked at her in complete bafflement, she elaborated: "Xeno needs this, people his own age to talk to, you know."

Mary wasn't sure, but that might have been the most lucid thing she had ever heard Luna say. She and Hermione stared at the younger girl, still blatantly confused, as she skipped away, holding her father's hand and giggling.

"Come on, girls, we've booked reservations at Angelo's," Dan said, pushing their trolley toward the exit. "And you two have a _lot_ of explaining to do!"

Hermione sighed, following her parents. "I know, but I have one question first."

"Shoot, poppet."

"What's a Crumple-horned Snorkack?"

Emma burst out laughing, then whispered something in Hermione's ear which made the girl go very red.

"In that case, what the bloody hell is a Twillk?"

"Hermione, language!" Emma corrected her at once.

"No, seriously, Luna said Snorkacks eat Twillks!"

Dan was positively giggling now. "Motivation to get out of bed, maybe?"

"Speak for yourself," Emma shot back.

"Do I even want to know?" Mary whispered.

"No, I really don't think you do," Hermione answered. "Don't ask. They haven't the least sense of propriety, so they won't hesitate to tell you all about it if you do."

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Much later that same night, the elder Grangers were lay in bed, lights out, minds whirling with the details of the dangers and traumas their daughter and her best friends had been subjected to over the past two years (Dark Lords plotting, possession, kidnappings, illegal potions experiments, and turning into a _catgirl_ , sharing memories and living out alternate lives – surely that couldn't be healthy?). Emma bit her lip in an expression eerily reminiscent of Hermione and turned to her husband. "Am I crazy for thinking maybe we should just go for it?"

Dan sighed, propping himself up against the headboard. "Probably."

"She really wants this, Danny. You saw her face when we suggested Beauxbatons. And she grabbed Beth's hand so tightly I thought she might break a finger. And Beth _let_ her. They're good for each other. I just can't bring myself to face pulling our little Maiabee away from the first real friends she's ever had."

"I didn't say that, did I? Just… It's crazy, to think that those are the only options. The whole damn magical world is completely and utterly mad. So yeah, I think it's a bit crazy to consider throwing in with them, regardless of what Hermione wants. You know she's going to be facing prejudice there for her heritage as well as her intelligence. I think we should seriously consider hiring a tutor."

"You're right, the whole bloody system is completely backwards." Emma hesitated, the added softly, "We could fix it, or try to. At least some of the worst parts of it. And a tutor would still take her away from her friends."

Dan sighed again, looking down at his wife's profile in the light from the window. "There's lifetimes worth of work to be done there, Em. Even you can't break the traditions of centuries overnight." He conveniently ignored the issue of Hermione's friends. He knew his little princess had had a lonely childhood, but he wasn't sure he could justify sacrificing her safety for her happiness.

"I _know_ that. It's just… someone has to take the first step, don't they?"

"I suppose they do at that."

"And you know I've never been one to back down from a fight. Mione's not either. She got your love of books, true,"

"And your sense of justice, yes, love, I know." That was actually a kind way of putting it. Obstinacy, or even belligerence might be more accurate. Tell either one of his girls they couldn't have a thing, and they would happily go to war for it.

Both Grangers were quiet for a long, long time. By the time Emma spoke again, Dan thought she might have been asleep.

"I want to go all in on this."

The man bent to kiss his wife's temple, quashing his fears for his daughter's safety as best he could. She had been very, very clear. She wanted to stay at Hogwarts and support her friends, no matter the consequences. So they would just have to do everything in their power to make that world one they were comfortable allowing their daughter to live in.

"Then I guess we're all in."

"Watch out, Magical Britain – Dan and Emma Granger are going to take you by storm!" Emma declared with a fake evil laugh.

"Muahahaha," Dan echoed with a grin. "They won't even know what hit them."

"Mmmm, you know it. Now, what say we find ourselves a Crumple-horned Snorkack?"

"I thought you'd _never_ ask."


	24. AN response to reviews

**This is an A/N chapter.**

This chapter was updated 15 Dec 15.

Progress:

 **The last chapter of Book 2 is now posted!** (Immediately prior to this AN Chapter.) If you would still rather a PDF version for some reason, PM me with your email address  (*make sure you use the word instead of the 'at' symbol, or add spaces or something so this site doesn't censor/remove the address!*) or drop me a line at pseudoleigha at gmail dot com.

I am, in fact, working on Book 3, but it's going a bit slowly compared to the first two, partly because it's even more canon divergent (so there's more stuff for me to make up as I go along) and partly because I need to pretend to be a functioning adult in the real world, instead of writing all day every day. It's also likely to be a good deal longer than the previous books. I've finished five chapters out of 22 (about 90 pages, so I guess the book will top out around 400 pages? The first two were 270 and 280 respectively). I will not post the beginning of book 3 until it's mostly done (I have enough stories on hiatus already) so it may be a few months before it starts posting.

WHEN I START POSTING BOOK 3, I WILL ADD A NOTICE TO THE END OF THIS STORY.

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Responses to reviews:

Hi, everyone, thank you for reviewing (and thanks also for reading to those who have followed/favorited this story, but not reviewed).

 **Revision to Chapter 22 (Moving Right Along)** – in response to Jodic's comment, the following tangent has been added to the conversation between Snape and Mary:

Mary, who had more or less just been letting his words wash over her while she tried to figure out when Riddle graduated, and wondering whether she dared ask if Professor Snape would teach her to fend off mind magic like Riddle's compulsions, scrambled to answer. "Mind magic is like divination mixed with compulsion, which is kind of like some forms of wandless magic, especially the one Riddle practiced. Magical theory is a lot more connected than Professors Flitwick and McGonagall make it sound like in class. And Riddle may have published on a radical theory just out of school just to irritate Dumbledore. Did they not get along, then?"

"Before he left school, I believe. And no. Tom Riddle's first month in Slytherin was not unlike your own, though you may be reassured to know that he actually had _his_ snake bite _his_ Malfoy, not just threaten to do so. Dumbledore legilimized him, almost certainly without his permission. From what I've gathered from the Records, their relationship deteriorated from there."

Mary considered the implications of her solution to her situation in Slytherin being so similar to the young Tom Riddle's, and then, deciding that that was an uncomfortable avenue of thought, decided that she did dare to make her request. "Umm…"

"Dark Powers, don't stutter."

Mary bit her lip, then said very quickly, "Could you teach me mind magic? Sir?" she added belatedly.

"What, precisely, would you want to know?"

"I, erm… that is…" The professor raised an eyebrow at her inarticulate, half-started request. "The compulsions, sir," she finally said. "You said Riddle put compulsions in my mind, and I really, really don't want that to happen again."

"No."

"No?" Mary had not expected such a flat refusal. "Why not, sir?" she tried to keep her tone from becoming whiny, but she wasn't sure if she succeeded. It just seemed terribly unfair of him to flat out refuse to teach her something that would be so useful to know.

"For one thing," he said wryly, "Your personality is decidedly unsuited to Occlumency. I doubt whether you have any natural talent for the art at all. For another, you are nearly thirteen, and the beginning of puberty is precisely the worst time of life to begin studying the mind arts, as it is the time when your emotions will be least under your control. Thirdly, it is highly unlikely that you will ever meet anyone besides myself and the Dark Lord who are capable of compelling you so subtly that you are unable to recognize and therefore disregard the compulsion regardless of your capability in mind arts. It would be a waste of your time and my own to go to the trouble of teaching you solely for that purpose. Need I go on?"

"No, sir," Mary sighed. She still thought it would be good to know. She definitely wasn't going to tell him that she wanted to know Occlumency so she could get away with things like the Veritaserum Conspiracy more easily.

Silence fell around them again, and Mary looked at the timer: Six minutes to go. She gracelessly attempted to re-start their previous conversation. "So if you were researching mind magic, you'd be a healer of sorts?"

Professor Snape rolled his eyes at her impertinence, but he did answer. "No. I have some skill at healing, and especially cursebreaking as it applies to healing, which is more like Dark Arts than any other legal discipline, but I would prefer to focus on the advancement of techniques, not on the problems of the individual."

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 **Lightning king (Chapter 22)** \- Hermione is my favorite canon character, followed by Snape. She is probably the second most likely to seem Mary-Sue-ish in this series, after Emma... and that's only because I'm closer to Emma's stage of life than Hermione's. That said, I am aware of the problem, and I'll be avoiding it in the long term over the course of the series.

You are absolutely right that Hermione doesn't have great magical power or any creative imagination to speak of. She's a child prodigy in a technical sense of the term - quick to learn anything anyone is willing to teach her, with an adult-like grasp of complex theoretical concepts - but not a genius. Any spells she creates and the solutions she comes up with are a product of a good mind for synthesis and the ability to extrapolate the next logical step to build on an existing idea. She has an eye for detail, and a very good memory, but she tends toward overly-complex solutions which integrate her latest pet project than something simpler and more effective.

She has what I consider some realistic personality flaws as well which will become more evident as Mary grows up enough to notice that just because Hermione is her first friend and practically a sister, that doesn't automatically make her a great person: She makes token efforts toward being a 'nice' or 'good' person that only serve to annoy her friends, especially because she doesn't really take their opinions into consideration when making big decisions, and is unintentionally offensive to most people when she first meets them; she is highly amoral when it comes to pursuing a goal she thinks is important (normally knowledge, sometimes catching the Heir of Slytherin) and runs roughshod over everyone else's rights and opinions (self-righteousness is not just for Gryffindors. SPEW is a product of both of these flaws, in canon); and as we saw at Mabon, she's an elitist, no matter how much she tries to deny it. She is also downright bad at prioritizing, has a habit of assuming she is always right, and is an enormous hypocrite when she complains about wizards having no common sense.

Book 4, I think, is when Hermione will hit her peak compared to most of the other characters and seem VERY Sue-like, though she plays a very significant role in the conflict at the end of Book 5 as well. By the end of Book 4, almost everyone else will be on-par with Hermione in terms of power, and post-OWL, other students are going to be old enough that they start performing similarly academically. By that point, Hermione performing better than any other character would simply be a matter of extra experience due to time-turning, and a very good memory, not any real advantage in native intelligence or power.

If anyone wants to talk about different characters' abilities, magical specialties, or their probable direction of development throughout the series, PM me. As lightning king is now aware, I will happily talk your ear off about it.

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 **Hermes6034 (Chapter 18)** – Now that this chapter is posted, I think it's safe to say that yeah, my original thought was that this would just be a short-lived red-herring for Tom, but then I decided that they did have enough in common, and, well… it was just too tempting. Regarding any other plot twists, saying just about anything would be telling, wouldn't it? I have told other people though, that Tom will be back eventually. What he does when he returns is still up in the air.

 **Lightning king (Chapter 19, 20, 21)** – I've already responded to these via PM, but the short version, for anyone else who is wondering, is that unfortunately Mary doesn't currently remember any of the truly awesome stuff that happened in the Chamber. I considered it, but it would have accelerated the plot way too much to give her that kind of knowledge this soon.

Mary is supposed to be learning Latin and French already, but they're not really her thing, and she's been slacking. Akkadian is Cuneiform, which will show up in Ancient Runes eventually, and Sirius may suggest that her lessons as a proper Society girl have been lacking lessons in Gobbledygook as a magical language.

Hermione and Ginny will become friends (kind of. It's a very unhealthy, unequal friendship). This does not necessarily mean that Mary and Lilian will also be very good friends with Ginny. Hermione is still a champion of the underdog, and since she knows how elves feel about their situation in this story, you get Ginny instead of SPEW. She will become less of a wet blanket over time as she recovers from this experience.

Mary will be very good at some things, and not at all at others, rather than being completely average at everything. Snape firmly believes that kids get into less trouble if you tell them everything you don't actually have a reason not to tell them. This goes double for nosey brats like Hermione, Lilian, and the twins. Ginny and Mary have a right to know what really happened simply because they were victims of the whole ordeal. He also has a very bad sense of what it is appropriate to tell children: case in point, telling a bunch of 12-15 year olds how horcruxes work.

 **Jodic** – Thanks! The idea is that I'm trying not to let any character be a one-dimensional pastiche, including the professors. Luna/Tom is one of my favorite conversational pairings, because he's trying so hard to be circumspect, and she's just wandering around not giving a single fuck. I'm glad that the compulsions explained the cooperation a bit. My beta had the same objection, thinking that it seemed weird that everyone just went along with everything Tom told them to so easily, but I couldn't think of a way to work it into the Chamber chapters that he was manipulating their thoughts by magic as well as by being charming and funny and teaching them stuff.

I hadn't really considered Mary looking into Legilimency and Occlumency until her fourth year. As far as she knows, she hasn't really had it used on her much. When Snape used it in questioning all of the Slytherins and after the Chamber, he did it in a way that was more noticeable than Dumbledore's twinkly-eyed spying. But you're right, she would at the very least have asked Snape how to avoid compulsions like the ones Tom used on her in the future. I'll have to re-write the chapter I just posted when I have a bit more time, and work that request in.

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 **Belial666 (Chapter 20)** – The short answer is that Snape is only in his thirties. He has a lot of experience for the average thirty-something wizard, but he doesn't know everything. While he's very well read in Dark Arts, his experience in that realm is much more with battle magic, curses, and defense against them than any kind of ritual magic. On the other hand, if they gave Masteries in Mind Magic, he would certainly qualify for one, so he tries that first. His experiences with Voldemort, Bellatrix, and Lily, and later seeing different holiday rituals at Hogwarts mean he has seen more ritual magic than most, and he knows a few forensic and Dark Arts spells that can detect the type of magic that was used on a person or object, but he still has little insight into how rituals and the Powers work. He will certainly do some reading and try to reconstruct the rituals that most likely happened in the Chamber, but all he knows is that Mary was a voluntary participant, and it required her blood, which leaves a lot to the imagination.

The longer explanation of why someone other than Snape doesn't just interrogate the kids' souls involves a discussion of consciousness, some specifics on Mind Magic and Obliviation, a re-interpretation of the chapter Priori Incantatem from Canon Book 4, the soul, the afterlife and how it all works with the Powers. But there is a reason. I'll PM you.

Part of the reason I answer reviews here is so that if anyone else is curious after reading a question in the reviews, they can find the answer here. So if anyone else wants the details, let me know and I'll PM you, too.

 **Laissankari (Chapter 21)** – Thanks! No worries about your English, it's much better than any of my second languages :)

 **Lynxreader (Chapter 20)** – At least Worm is an openly dystopian portrayal of a failed state (well, city, since it's really just Brocton Bay that's fallen apart completely). Hogwarts is made out to be some kind of fairy tale, especially in the beginning, and you have to dig into it to see how corrupt and twisted it really is. Like, yeah, it's great that Harry never got into any real trouble at school, but _neither did anyone else_ , and they definitely deserved to. I'm thinking of Sirius Black with the werewolf incident, the Weasley twins leaving Montague in a broken vanishing cabinet for weeks and testing their products on students, Hermione making restricted potions and using a time turner to help a convicted felon escape the law, and that's not even counting all the bullying and hazing that crosses the line into assault and battery. Just because almost anything can be healed, doesn't mean it's okay to casually inflict serious injuries… compare that to my high school where the cops were called if one kid punched another and it's just mind-boggling. I actually think the punishment Snape handed out for the Veritasserum incident in Chapter 21 (Debriefing) seems a bit light, given what they actually did, but I'm writing Book 3 now, and he's going to make those detentions hell.

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 **Belial666** (Chapter 19) – There are several reasons that Tom bothered teaching Mary (and the twins) unnecessary things: Portraying himself as a teacher puts him in a superior position over the students and makes them more likely to obey him; Offering his knowledge in (false) reciprocity for their help fosters a sense of trust which he needs in order to get them to do what he wants (if they chose not to participate, he could deny them food and water until they died, but he would still be without a body; this may be further clarified in the next couple of chapters); and he was actually being honest when he said he didn't mind answering Mary's questions. He's a bit of a know-it-all, it's been ages since he's had a good conversation, and he really wasn't thinking much past finishing the ritual.

Golems vs. homunculi - Golems are easier to destroy by magic, and homunculi need to be taken care of in very specific ways, so they're easier to destroy through neglect or plain screwing up. A golem is technically any constructed body that is animated and controlled by an outside consciousness. Homunculi like the one used in canon book 4 are most often necromantic constructs with a relatively short shelf-life, created specifically for the purpose of being possessed by a demonic entity (ie, controlled by an internalized consciousness), which may or may not have magic of its own (this is based on Silently Watches' description of homunculi in… whichever Princess of the Blacks book Voldemort comes back). I suppose the difference would really be that homunculi have a life-spark that sustains them without external animation (however tenuous that life might be) while a golem has to be animated through a series of complex enchantments (kind of like an AI, but instead of mimicking higher thought processes, the "pseudo-spark" as Tom calls it mimics the basics, like walking and, in more humanoid golems, autonomic functions like a heartbeat, breathing, and digestion; the controller or possessing entity controls the voluntary muscles and decision-making).

A blood golem specifically is alchemically produced by creating a primordial soup (all the lipids, proteins, and assorted other biochemical compounds necessary to construct a human body… most easily acquired by dissolving a human body), blood is used as a blueprint to extract the "essence" of the target's physical form (DNA), and transmuting the soup into the desired form following the target's DNA. It is then further enchanted with the "pseudo-spark" of animation, and often protective enchantments, since it has no magic of its own other than what sustains its animation. (Bio-Alchemy is one of the Greater Dark Arts, and nearly as illegal as Black Arts rituals. Some people would say it's a greater perversion of magic than the Horcrux, since it's concerned with making life from non-life. Alchemy as a whole is a terrifying conceptual area. If Dumbledore was willing to use what he knows of Alchemy in a less-than-ethical way, he would be much, much scarier).

Tom's body is somewhat like a hybrid of a golem and a homunculus, because it was created like a golem, but houses his consciousness, magic, half a soul, and the basilisk's life-spark, rather than just the magic which was used to create it and the enchantments to run it. Theoretically, the presence of all the elements that make up true life in the golem will allow it to develop its own, integrated magical fundamental identity eventually, but it may take decades to apparate or resist transfiguration as well as a real person. Tom will need to use part of his own magic to maintain the golem once its seven-year life-span expires (which may become increasingly difficult over time), and he will need to actively resist any transfigurations or charms cast on the golem in order to maintain its original form (though this will become easier over time as it develops its own fundamental identity). He's also entirely mortal again, and can't make another horcrux because horcruxes depend on the connection between life-spark and soul to anchor a consciousness, and Tom no longer has that connection.

Further complications may occur if I feel Tom is having too easy a time of it when he reappears in the series. These may range from the relatively silly, like consciously having to blink (because snakes don't, so the basilisk's life-spark wouldn't provide that instinct), to relatively serious, like the combination of basilisk and human blood used in its creation causing an accelerated and exponentially greater breakdown of the body, so that he has to somehow create a new one before all of his magic is tied up in sustaining what amounts to an increasingly unstable transfiguration.

 **Lynxreader** (Chapter 19) – Mary definitely has not been upgraded to the point of needing Diary!Tom as a foil. Mary's upgrades over Harry have been largely in the realm of making her less trusting, and simultaneously giving her friends and allies who share information effectively (and who lead her to study more, instead of loafing around and goofing off). Sharing information alone circumvents at least half of the canon plot-points, and her actions and choices have a significant ripple effect. Her adversary is still Voldemort, mostly because he won't leave her alone. Voldemort is still the same idiot who repeatedly fails to kill a kid, and could potentially be killed (eventually) by more or less getting lucky and stumbling into it.

If anything, Mary and Voldemort's conflict is probably going to end up looking like a side-plot by the end of the series, because they are surrounded by much more competent characters who have bigger goals than just one murder. Their conflict is still the driving force behind events, which must be resolved in order to move forward, but Mary herself is more of a catalyst than a heroine in this series.

Diary!Tom is also not necessarily as powerful as he seems in these last few chapters. He is able to pull this ritual out of his arse, basically, because he spent the first five years or so in the diary corresponding with his older self about horcruxes and re-embodiment rituals, as they continued to explore the concept of escaping death. He knows a lot more about Dark Arts and magical theory than he would have when he was created because the Original!Tom would have taken advantage of the fact that he had a captive audience with his own mental abilities with whom to discuss such things, but his knowledge is very focused on those few topics. Generally his level of competence is a happy medium between chasing roosters around the Chamber to vanish them and godlike wandless magic.

As for what Diary!Tom is going to do, that would be telling, I think. He'll be off screen for at least a couple of books, but will come back eventually.

Re: Basilisks, Mary doesn't know that Slytherin was using the basilisk as a 'heat sink' for the school. She won't remember anything she was told after the basilisk was killed. The kids were able to find so little information on basilisks that seemed legitimate that she doesn't realize they're actually sapient and would make an excellent familiar (but yeah, they totally would). Fun fact - that is how Voldemort broke the basilisk in the first place. He used a Familiar ritual to bind her to himself, and when he lost his mind, she did too. Nagini is a post-discorporation acquisition.

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 **Belial666** (Chapter 18) – He didn't consider it before the Basilisk was dead. He didn't realize how much magic it had been containing (and it's more than sufficient for the ritual he's now thinking to use), so he was sticking with his original plan to kill off whatever idiot he could snag with his horcrux and use their life and magic to regenerate. Now that the basilisk is dead and the chamber is flooded with magic (which has ruined his first plan), he's realizing he has more options than he thought.

 **Lightning king** (Chapter 18) – It's not done yet. There are still six more updates: two in the Chamber (both of which I just posted), two the aftermath of the Chamber, and two which cover the last couple months of the year and tie up a few loose ends. One of the aftermath chapters explains a bit of why Tom and Mary (and the twins) are acting somewhat out of character in the Chamber. Rest assured, if Tom is acting like a nice guy, it's only an act. As for the twins and Mary, I'll address that further after they get out of the Chamber. I wouldn't say they're friends after, but Mary's not as vindictive about the whole situation as one might expect (for what you may or may not consider to be a good reason).

 **Chisscientist** (Chapter 18) – I'm afraid it only gets odder from here…

 **6tailedninja** (Chapter 18) – If it's wrong to like Diary Tom, it's probably very, very wrong to be the person who likes writing him… The horcrux thing was clearly shocking enough that he responded without thinking, but it probably wasn't as startling as her pegging him /as a diary/ as the Heir.

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 **Robert Smith** and **Anaisrosemunde** \- I would love to send you a PDF, but I didn't quite catch your email addresses (this site does terrible things to anything that looks like a web address or special character). If you drop me a line at psuedoleigha at gmail dot com, I will send you the book as a response.

 **Belial666** (Chapter 16) – The Conspirators did consider starting with younger students, but decided it would probably take some time to locate the Chamber of Secrets, and older students were more likely to have had time to find it. They had already decided on this when Tom (via Luna) suggested that their Heir had had help to find it. They are also modeling their interrogation strategies on Snape's, and he started with older students and worked down to first years.

Alibis might not have been accepted by the professors. They were never tested. Dumbledore, of course, already thinks it's Tom somehow, and he told Minerva, but they don't know how he's doing it. The Slytherins think it would be better to have an alibi than to not have one, and it's their excuse for using a buddy system without admitting they're just as afraid as everyone else.

Most people can't speak Parseltongue properly, even under the Imperius, because part of the meaning is communicated via scent and sounds that human vocal tracts just can't make. It would be like trying to speak English without using a key letter like 'E'. The word for 'open' can be pronounced, but complex instructions would be out of the question. Magic makes up the difference for parselmouths. I have to admit, I'd never heard of Corvinus Gaunt until you mentioned him, because I don't follow Pottermore. (You may have noticed, for example, that the layout of the Slytherin dorms is completely fabricated.) I don't believe that Slytherin would only have left one entrance to his chamber. The house of the cunning would have a back door.

I doubt any charm Slytherin put on the Basilisk would have lasted so long. If he did include such a precaution in the beginning, there's a very good chance that his descendants failed to keep it up over the centuries. Why were the students certain that roosters (or transfigured roosters) would kill it? A) Youthful overconfidence and B) any excuse to feel like they have some control over their own safety. The primary reason to have a basilisk in the first place was not for defense, but because basilisks use ambient magic as an energy source. They can eat, but they don't have to. The Chamber and the basilisk serve as a magical heat-sink for Hogwarts. It may have also been used as a weapon of last resort in case of invasion, but that wasn't what Slytherin was thinking at the time.

Security arrangements vs. anything - the Headmaster is in charge of the defense of the school, and the Board has come to trust Dumbledore's judgement over the decades. His apparent indifference to the threat is something I don't have an explanation for. I'll think about it, but it may end up written off as just a mistake in judgement on his part. Society as a whole is not concerned because it's only muggleborns.

 **Whatweareafreaidof** – I don't hate Ron, and I'm not intentionally writing him as a jerk. In this scene, he's a scared, angry kid. In canon, he contributed just as many good ideas to the trio in their first couple of years as Harry or Hermione, and had a realistic blend of strengths and flaws. But he never liked Slytherins and the Gryffindors all saw them as a united front led by Malfoy. He and Mary personally don't have good history, and it's as much her fault as his if not more. She lied to him the first time they met about who she was and then became friends Morgana Yaxley, blatantly dismissing the history between the Prewetts and Yaxleys. She's also allies with the twins, who treat Ron kind of like shit. Colin may have over-exaggerated, lied, or misinterpreted the situation at Quidditch trials to set Ron off, but Mary walking away scot-free while he got a backfired slug vomiting curse wouldn't have endeared her to him, and there _are_ reasons to think that she's the Heir. She doesn't even really try to deny them. So his gut reaction when she's present after Percy is petrified is that she probably had something to do with it.

Re: food - The way I'm looking at canon (just the books) is that what we 'know' about magic is what Harry sees, and he's an unreliable narrator – people lie to him, intentionally and through their own ignorance, and we don't see the technical details of _how_ magic works, because most of the time it's not pertinent to the story. If you use magic to add milk to your tea, for example, are you conjuring it from nothing, transfiguring some of the tea into milk, casting an illusion to make it taste like there is now milk in your tea, or transporting milk from a known location to your teacup? I'm assuming that magic is impermanent, so the first two options have the potential to cause major problems at a molecular level depending on how long the transfiguration/conjuration lasts (LessWrong's HPMOR discusses this idea in depth). I'm trying to keep things internally consistent, though I admit that I may someday reach a point where I've written myself into a corner and created a completely illogical/incoherent statement or facet of magic that I can't explain (like, above, why Dumbledore wouldn't have put greater precautions in place to help protect students after the first attack).

Arthur is the kind of guy who goes to pawn shops and gets totally taken advantage of. Yeah, the car was basically a beater, but he also likely has a shed full of kitchen gadgets and electronics like radios and a record player and a television that he overpaid for because it's clear that he hasn't the foggiest idea what he's doing in the muggle world. He doesn't know the value of money or the things he's buying, because it's all interesting collector's junk to him.

 **Sktheiss** (chapter 16) – Over the course of the first year, the Grangers neglected to renew their Daily Prophet subscription. As Emma pointed out in the first book, it's really more like a small-town paper than a daily national, and they didn't feel like they were missing out on anything by not reading about all the little trivial announcements every day. They've been focusing instead on the theory behind magic and fulfilling their intellectual curiosity about their new world. Of course, that means when there's big news, they don't hear about until Emma's one witch friend mentions something over tea. One of the reasons that Emma was upset in the first draft of the Howler was that she now would have to renew her subscription to the daily rag because she can't trust her own daughter to tell her when there is some mysterious monster stalking the halls of her school. I cut it because it felt like a forced explanation.

Re: Tom & Luna – Tom finds Luna exasperating because yes, he can see that she's incredibly bright, and he can even follow her sideways leaps in logic most of the time, but she's so different from the people he's used to interacting with and manipulating that he's never sure where he stands with her. This also makes her very interesting, and he would like to get to know her better, but not as much as he would like to get a body back. Luna is far less interested in Tom than Tom is in her. She thinks of him as an enchanted curiosity of a sort, maybe like a pensieve. I expect there will be a funny scene in year three where someone explains that, no, actually, it was a horcrux all along, and Luna's reaction will be something along the line of: *shrugs* Well, I did know he was a liar…

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 **Belial666** – Thanks! I'm glad it comes off as realistic, but bear in mind that this is what Ginny knows and tells Tom. There's probably a lot we didn't see, including everything that Molly actually does over the course of the day while the kids are off running wild. And on the flip side, if wizards don't need to spend a lot of money on most things they use in their daily life, but Arthur spends quite a lot of money on muggle stuff, I'd say he's playing a big part in their financial difficulties as well. I'm going to write a much longer response and PM you, because I've just started reading 'The Brightest Witch in the Darkest House,' and I want you to poke holes in my worldbuilding. It probably won't happen for a few more days at least because the end of the semester snuck up on me.

I'm actually deliberately avoiding the fan-trope where Tom's entire personality can be explained by saying horcruxes drove him mad. Arguably, of course, Tom was already mad to actually consider making one in the first place, but the point is that wizards don't know any more than muggles about the essence of a person. A hundred different authors will tell you they know, but it's all unfounded philosophical musing. The 'soul' that is split in the horcrux ritual is _probably_ not the same sort of immortal soul that defines the essence of your being and theoretically goes to heaven. It clearly exists, because it can somehow tether you to the rest of the world if you put part of it in an object, it hurts in ways that are otherwise unimaginable to break it and separate it, and if you rip it out entirely via Avada Kedavra, it causes instant death (possibly from shock), but it doesn't seem to actually… _do_ anything when it's in place.

 **Jana** \- You're welcome. Thank you for reviewing.

 **Sktheiss** – I think you're really going to like the chapter I just uploaded, then ;) As for Fudge, yeah, he's incompetent, but at least he's not Umbridge.

PS, heliopaths = propaganda writers.

 **Miko Road** – I'm not sure how much I can say without running the risk of spoilers, but I think it's safe to say now (after Chapter 8 is posted) that the plot advances quickly compared to canon. The plots are a bit more elaborate, and everything just comes to a head sooner. There is also about three times as much ritual magic in this book compared to the first :)

 **Sktheiss** – Yeah, Zacharias _really_ doesn't appreciate being condescended to in that first lesson, especially since Lockhart's such a useless professor. He volunteers for all the things Harry got roped into in canon, specifically with the aim of making Lockhart look like a fool. Also, apparently Sinistra is a feminist as well as a Slytherin and Snape's friend with benefits – who knew?

 **Epsi10n** – The Slytherin Quidditch team encourages a more active seeker's role, at least when they have a seeker who is good enough to pull it off. Mostly because just circling the pitch all the time seems like it would be terribly dull.

 **Papilokaze** – I'd like to think that this is a logical universe, even if it does contain some very illogical elements ;)

 **Lightning king** – IDK, I'm kind of hoping for more reviews when it's complete, or at least after the climax. I think people review works in progress more often when they think authors need encouragement, or think their input might have some effect on the outcome of the story. Which admittedly it won't for this one, since it's done, but I do really appreciate the sentiment, and the encouragement and enthusiasm for the next book already!

 **Akane Mosoa** – Thanks, but I can't take all the credit for this one. I'm not sure where, but I know I have seen the idea that elves' magic is too powerful for them to handle and needs to be subordinated to humans' before. It was something about house elves being like brownies, with a tendency to 'boggart' if they weren't tied to a family. I just added the infernal parasite twist to explain the tendency to completely shun elves who do not conform to the cultural expectation of the happy servant.


	25. Notice: Now Posting: 29 Aug 2016

Mary Potter and the Chained Servant (#3) is now posting! Once-weekly, on Mondays.

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 _ **Other new things in the Mary Potter universe since the end of book 2:**_

 **Coming of Age in the House of Black**

 _[1950-1982, from the perspectives of the Black family, focusing on Bella, Meda, Cissy, Siri, and Reggie, their roles in the war, and the moments that defined their lives. Very dark. Kind of twisted. Series of one-shots. Rated M.]_

 **An Intermediate Beginning**

 _[1959-1971, Matilde Harrison's story. Not quite as bad as Coming of Age, but still dealing with pretty traumatic stuff. Rated M.]_

 **What's in a Name?**

 _[1980, James and Lily are in hiding, and trying to choose a name for their child. Two-shot. Rated K.]_

 **The Changing of the Guardian**

 _[1981, the details of the Fidelius Charm and the circumstances of Peter's becoming the Secret Keeper. Rated T.]_

 **Coda: Not the Time**

 _[31 October 1981, epilogue to Changing of the Guardian. Rated T.]_


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